The world's biggest bank. Chase National of N. Y., last week was embarked upon an attempt to solve U. S. bankers' most annoying headache: who controls the U. S. funds of Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Belgian, Latvian and other Russian and Nazi victims? The assets of ten such countries have already been "frozen" here by U. S. decree (estimated total on ice: around $3,000,000,000) and can be transferred only by license from the U. S. Treasury, via the Federal Reserve Bank. But even the Treasury's say-so does not free a U. S. private banker from the legal consequences of making a mistaken payment. With diplomats, refugees and foreign clients hounding and threatening them daily, U. S. bankers have lost much sleep. The Chase's solution: to seek a court decision in a test case.
When asked to pay out foreign funds, U. S. bankers are twice shy. Their first burns were inflicted by the Russian Revolution. The multifarious lawsuits that grew out of Soviet expropriations have piled up more interest costs and legal fees than the original claims, yet a great many of them remain unsolved after twenty-three years. But the potential legal complications after World War II make the Russian claims look like a law schoolboy's homework.
Most tangled problems concern the Dutch, who have around $700,000,000 of dollar assets in the U. S. When The Netherlands' Queen Wilhelmina escaped to London, the Dutch financial empire apparently escaped with her. Under a decree of May 24, 1940, The Royal Netherlands Government "temporarily residing in London" expropriated for the duration all Dutch assets outside of The Netherlands proper belonging to corporations and individuals still in occupied territory on May 15. The U. S. took "official cognizance of" this decree, recognized Wilhelmina's Government in exile and her duly accredited Minister in Washington, Dr. Alexander Loudon.
But this careful wording did not satisfy twice-shy U. S. banks. What if after paying out funds held for Dutch banks and corporations, they were later called to account by accredited officers still in The Netherlands? What if there were a frankly anti-Wilhelmina Dutch Government after the war, plus a new U. S. Government ready to deal with new governments abroad? What if it could be proved that the acts of a refugee head of state, without her Parliament's consent, were null and void?