Beating the Shell Game: Bank Secrecy Laws and Their Impact on Civil Recovery in International Fraud Actions

This decree by the Nazi Government in 1933 is probably the single most important event leading to the advent of bank secrecy laws as we know them today. This criminal provision was enacted to halt the German Jews' movement of assets out of Germany and into Swiss banks — a movement that was occasioned by the Government's attempt to seize the Jews' assets. Swiss banks were chosen because of their geographic proximity, but more so because of Switzerland's then unofficial policy of confidentiality over banking deposits and transactions.