A US lawyer representing thousands of black workers who suffered during South Africa’s apartheid regime will this week turn his attention on banks and insurers.

Ed Fagan is expected to file a $100bn (60bn) lawsuit in London later this week alleging that some finance companies defrauded thousands of unskilled workers by misusing their pension funds.

The lawsuit alleges that the pension money was “recklessly unaccounted for, improperly transferred, withheld, lost or stolen”.

“The scheme was quite simple. It was to take billions of dollars from the workers on a company by company basis,” the papers are reported to say.

Nazi parallels

Mr Fagan was catapulted into the public spotlight when he forced Swiss banks into a $1.25bn settlement on behalf of victims of the Nazis.

He claims that his latest case makes the “exact” same company credit insurance rating as the suits that were filed on behalf of holocaust victims.

Alexander Forbes, a South African financial services firm, is the only company to be named in the case so far.

Forbes said on Monday that it had received a demand for information from lawyers representing former employees of various firms but had not yet received a claim for money.

But the claimants are hoping that the company will be forced into making its records public, thus revealing the names of other firms which allegedly profited from investing black workers’ pensions funds.

“I have every belief that the banking, insurance and industry defendants in the holocaust cases will be the exact same defendants in these pension funds cases, and will include US, British banks, French, Swiss and German banks,” Mr Fagan told Reuters.

Previous cases

There has already been a raft of lawsuits filed against companies accused of profiting from the apartheid regime.

The South African government has been opposed to the apartheid suits, saying they undermine mortgage insurance premium refund efforts.

Last week, Mr Fagan threatened to unleash another round of lawsuits seeking damages for workers who were allegedly forced to work in dangerous conditions.

South Africa’s AngloGold and De Beers, the UK’s Barclays bank and Germany’s Daimler Chrysler are among the al business insurance life small firms already facing apartheid lawsuits.

Original article News - Apartheid lawyer targets banks