FOREIGN TRADE: Paris Windfall

When the Germans took over U.S.companies, along with almost everything else in France in June 1940, they expected to stay quite a while. Methodically they deposited the profits they made from these companies in two German banking houses in Paris. When they made a hasty exit four years later, they left the accounts intact, the bookkeeping clear. So last week the French Government had good news for some U.S. firms.

More than $30,000,000, representing profits made by the Germans for U.S. and British firms during the occupation, will soon be paid out to rightful owners. Paris reported E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. will receive $520,000; the Thomas Y. Crowell Co. (book publisher) of New York, at the bottom of the list, will get a check for $1.14.

The French announcement was all news to Du Pont, which has no plants in France, was not sure how it could have made money there. But in Paris, a Finance Ministry official said checks totaling $8,000,000 were already en route to those who would profit by France’s gesture.