A Swiss court has cleared the way for a group of Gypsies to sue computer giant IBM for allegedly helping Nazi slaughter campaigns during World War II, the plaintiffs' lawyer said on Tuesday. Lawyer Henri-Philippe Sambuc said an appeals court had overturned an earlier lower court ruling that Geneva had no jurisdiction to hear the test case that could eventually lead to a wider $12 billion claim against IBM.

The case claims that IBM facilitated the mass slaughter of Gypsies by knowingly allowing Nazi Germany to use its punch-card Hollerith tabulating machines--the mainframe computer of its era--to track and identify victims. Sambuc said the five plaintiffs, all of whom lost family members in death camps in the 1939-1945 period when Nazis killed an estimated 6 million Jews and 600,000 Gypsies in Europe, would claim $20,000 each from IBM for the alleged wrongdoing. IBM spokesman John Bukovinsky said
Source : http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1104_2-5243858.html