Holocaust Restitution Claims Administration
FRA was retained separately by Swiss and German authorities to build claims administration systems for hundreds of thousands of holocaust survivors, facilitating the disbursement of hundreds of millions of dollars over five years. These were among firm's first engagements after our founding at the turn of the century.
Switzerland
FRA was retained to build the claims management system for the Claims Resolution Tribunal (CRT) in Zurich in connection with the $1.2 billion Swiss Banks Settlement and the publication of some 34,000 dormant Holocaust era accounts. FRA’s system was able to streamline the evaluation of claims by the CRT’s team of lawyers and this significantly improved the rate of approval.
Germany
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (or the Claims Conference) is a nonprofit organization that secures material compensation for Holocaust survivors around the world. FRA was retained in the early 2000s to build a claims collection, validation and payment system for the German Government's 1999 DEM 10 billion ($5 billion) settlement.
FRA was retained to build the settlement and payment system, facilitating the payment of approximately $200 million per annum to over 500,000 individuals via German Government State Pension Schemes. This was done in compliance with German Government regulations, while also factoring in additional monthly pensions dependent on the recipient's geographical location (EU versus non-EU Member States, or certain former Soviet bloc countries).
These engagements were our first significant exposure to complex cross-border data transfer and government-backed transactions.