UBS to Forfeit Secret Client List, Pay Fine in Tax Fraud Deal

The Public Record:

UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement Wednesday on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Justice Department announced.

As part of the deferred prosecution agreement and in an unprecedented move, UBS, based on an order by the Swiss Financial Markets Supervisory Authority (FINMA), has agreed to immediately provide the United States government with the identities of, and account information for, certain United States customers of UBS’s cross-border business.

Under the deferred prosecution agreement, UBS has also agreed to expeditiously exit the business of providing banking services to United States clients with undeclared accounts. As part of the deferred prosecution agreement, UBS has further agreed to pay $780 million in fines, penalties, interest and restitution. Earlier today, the agreement was accepted in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. by U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn.

"Today’s agreement is but one milestone in an ongoing law enforcement effort to reassure hard-working and law-abiding taxpayers who pay their fair share of taxes that those who don’t will pay a heavy price," said John A. DiCicco, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Tax Division. "The veil of secrecy has been pulled aside and we will continue to aggressively pursue those who shirk their federal tax obligations or assist others in doing so."

"UBS executives knew that UBS’s cross-border business violated the law," said R. Alexander Acosta, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. "They refused to stop this activity, however, and in fact instructed their bankers to grow the business. The reason was money -- the business was too profitable to give up. This was not a mere compliance oversight, but rather a knowing crime motivated by greed and disrespect of the law."

A criminal information was unsealed Wednesday that charges UBS with conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the IRS. According to court documents, in 2000, after it purchased the brokerage firm Paine Webber, UBS voluntarily entered into an agreement with the IRS that required UBS to report to the IRS income and other identifying information for its United States clients who held United States securities in a UBS account.

Court documents allege that the agreement also required UBS to withhold income taxes from United States clients who directed investment activities in foreign securities from the United States. The information further asserts that, in order to evade those new reporting requirements, employees and managers within the cross-border business, with the knowledge of certain UBS executives, helped United States taxpayers open new UBS accounts in the names of nominees and/or sham entities.