A slave-labour settlement

SWITZERLAND'S banks bought themselves peace of mind. So too, at long last, has corporate Germany. On December 14th, after a year of wrangling, a group of 65 companies and Germany's government reached a deal with American lawyers to compensate survivors of Nazi labour camps. The following day, the negotiators were still haggling over the final figure for the fund, which was expected to be around DM10 billion ($5.2 billion), roughly four times the size of the Swiss pay-out. An agreement was due to be signed a week before Christmas.