Bloomberg News
NEW YORK -- A federal judge on Thursday dismissed 10 lawsuits by Holocaust survivors against German banks, including Deutsche Bank AG, removing the last major hurdle to releasing payments from a $4.8 billion compensation fund.
U.S. District Court judge Shirley Wohl Kram said she no longer objected to dismissing the cases, a step she had declined to take earlier this year. All U.S. lawsuits against German firms had to be dismissed in order for one million survivors of Nazi atrocities to collect from a German industry and government fund created last July.
Judge Kram previously said that dismissing the German bank case would prejudice victims of two Austrian banks, Bank Austria AG and Creditanstalt AG. But survivors lawyers proposed additional contributions to the fund, which satisfied the judges reservations.
