• US thanks
Swisspartners for 'extraordinary cooperation'
• Credit
Suisse expected to face big fine and criminal charges
theguardian.com,
AFP in Geneva, Saturday 10 May 2014
The deputy attorney general, James Cole, thanked Swisspartners for its cooperation. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP |
The
Zurich-based asset manager Swisspartners said on Saturday it would pay a $4.4m
(£2.6m) fine to avoid prosecution over its past assistance to US tax dodgers.
The US
deputy attorney general, James Cole, thanked the firm for its
"extraordinary cooperation".
The
agreement is part of a US push to find tax dodgers and punish the banks that
help them. Fourteen Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse, the country's
second-biggest, are officially under US criminal investigation, while many
others are opting to acknowledge past wrongs and accept fines to avoid
prosecution.
Credit
Suisse is expected soon to be slapped with fines of at least $1bn, as well as
possible criminal charges.
A damning
Senate report found that Credit Suisse at its peak in 2006 had more than 22,000
US customers with Swiss accounts whose assets stood as high as $12bn – mainly
undeclared to US tax authorities.
In February
the chief executive, Brady Dougan, apologised to senators for the bank's
actions, conceding it had undertaken elaborate efforts to gain new, secret
American clients, but blamed the wrongdoing on a small band of rogue employees.
In 2009,
Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, was forced to acknowledge it had used Swiss
banking secrecy laws to help its US clients avoid paying taxes at home, and had
to pay a $780m fine.
Between
2001 and 2011, Swisspartners helped US clients "in opening and maintaining
undeclared foreign bank accounts". Such actions lead to an approximate
loss to the US taxman of $900,000.
Swisspartners
will compensate that amount, as well as $3.5m representing the fees it earned
in helping US clients skirt the law.
"The
US tax issue is resolved," the Zurich-based asset manager's parent
company, the Lichtensteinische Landesbank (LLB Vaduz), said in a statement.
Swisspartners
and the Justice Department signed a "non-prosecution agreement" on
Friday, Liechtenstein's oldest bank said, stressing that provisions had been
made to cover the multimillion-dollar fine and it would not have an impact on
the asset manager's earnings.
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