Major Swiss bank: France’s highest court annuls billion-dollar fine against UBS

In the case of a billion-dollar fine for tax fraud by the major Swiss bank UBS

In France the sentence must be renegotiated. The highest French criminal court partially overturned the verdict of the Paris appeal court – but not the guilty verdict itself. UBS was almost two years ago was found guilty of unlawful financial transactions and aiding and abetting money laundering of proceeds from tax fraud.

At that time, the court imposed a fine of 3.75 million euros. In addition, one billion euros of the deposit that was deposited at the beginning of the investigation was to be withheld. The French state, as a co-plaintiff, was to receive 800 million euros in damages. All this will be retried in the Court of Appeal following the decision of the French Supreme Court.

UBS’s long-standing dispute with the French judiciary continues. The bank was in the first instance in February 2019 was sentenced to a record fine of more than 3.7 billion euros. After the verdict, UBS announced that there was “no concrete evidence” for the allegations and had appealed. This followed in December 2021 the verdict with a significantly lower fine of around 1.8 billion euros. UBS went into appeal again.

Fine of $780 million in the USA

The case itself goes back to the years 2004 to 2012. UBS is said to be pursuing employees at that time France sent to attract rich customers. They were encouraged to invest their money in Switzerland – bypassing the French tax authorities.

The investigation into the tax affair got rolling after information from former UBS employees. UBS was also targeted by authorities in other countries because of business with tax evaders. In Germany, the institute agreed with the judiciary in 2014 on a fine of around 300 million euros. In the USA, the bank had already had to accept a fine of 780 million US dollars in 2009.