UBS Agrees to Pay $780 Million, Name Names in Settlement with U.S.
The largest bank in Switzerland, UBS, has agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States on charges of conspiring to defraud the U.S. by impeding the IRS. UBS will reportedly pay $780 million and reveal the names of some of its U.S. clients in a settlement of the criminal fraud charges. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, UBS will admit to helping U.S. taxpayers hide accounts from the IRS.
According to a report at SwissInfo.ch, the fraud charges stem from claims that UBS assisted wealthy American clients evade tax payments. The clients named by UBS could be exposed to IRS scrutiny and charges themselves. According to the Justice Department, 17,000 of USB’s 20,000 cross-border U.S. clients hid their identities, and accounts totaling approximately $20 billion in assets, from the IRS.
From the Swiss Info report:
We accept full responsibility for these improper activities,” commented UBS chairman Peter Kurer in a statement.
“Client confidentiality, to which UBS remains committed, was never designed to protect fraudulent acts or the identity of those clients, who, with the active assistance of bank personnel, misused the confidentiality protections embedded in the Qualified Intermediary Agreement with US authorities by providing false declarations regarding their tax status,” Kurer added.
The Justice Department did not say how many names of UBS clients would be disclosed but the Geneva newspaper Le Temps said in an article on its website on Wednesday the data would involve about 250 people.
Raoul Weil, the former head of the UBS wealth management business, was declared a fugitive last month after he failed to surrender to U.S. authorities on charges of conspiring to help wealthy Ameircans hide assets from the IRS. His lawyer recently issued a statement saying that Weil engaged in “no misconduct”.
>>>read the entire article at SwissInfo.ch
Tags: conspiracy, Fraud, irs, justice department, settlement, tax fraud, usb
