U.S. officials who negotiated settlements with Switzerland after the war as being too lenient. Christoph Meili, a Swiss bank guard, also testified at the hearings, claiming to have witnessed illegal shredding of wartime records at Union Bank of Switzerland (SBG/UBS) in January 1997. He removed wartime records of transactions with German companies and gave them to the Swiss-Israeli Cultural Association. A warrant was issued for his arrest for violation of banking secrecy laws, and he fled to the U.S.. UBS claimed the records were not relevant to dormant Jewish assets. US–Swiss tension The hearings led to international friction between the US and Switzerland, with boycotts of Swiss companies and products threatened in several US states. In Switzerland, the most controversial contention of the Eizenstat report was that Switzerland assisted the Nazis beyond what was necessary for a neutral country, and prolonged the war. Swiss public opinion was overwhelmingly against any settlement. The banks' position was that the settlement demands were grossly out of proportion to the value of unclaimed assets, and the Swiss government's position was that negotiations relating to laundering of assets looted by the Nazis were settled during previous agreements with the Allied governments and could not be reopened, because no new historical information had come to light. Audits of dormant accounts ordered by the Swiss government in 1962 and 1995 showed a total of $32 million (1995 dollars) in unclaimed war-era accounts. In 1997, the banks published a list of dormant accounts in newspapers abroad. Among the names, then American ambassador, Zurich-born Madeleine Kunin, found Renee May, her mother, who died in 1970. The WJC rejected initial offers from the banks and demanded payment of $1.8 billion to settle the lawsuit. During the negotiations, the Swiss banks agreed to pay for another audit—headed by ex Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker—of wartime accounts. This audit committee consisted of three representatives from the banks, and three representatives from the Jewish groups. NY City Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi played a crucial role in the negotiations, convening a meeting in December 1997 with Swiss bank executives and Democratic Party state treasurers to discuss sanctions such as divesting state funds from Swiss banks and withholding licenses. Hevesi also withheld an operating license for the merger of Union Bank of Switzerland with Swiss Bank Corporation, who together made $4 billion in profits per year in New York City. Author Angelo Codevilla argues that