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| US Justice Dept may drop case against UBS: report |
| Press Trust of India / New York Jun 23, 2009, 20:19 IST |
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The Justice Department of America may drop the legal case aimed at forcing the Swiss bank UBS to divulge the names of 52,000 wealthy American clients suspected of offshore tax evasion, says a media report.
Attributing to a US official brief on the matter, The New York Times said, "The Justice Department may drop a closely watched legal case aimed at forcing the Swiss bank UBS to divulge the names of 52,000 wealthy American clients suspected of offshore tax evasion."
The move would halt an unusually aggressive effort to force Switzerland to lift its veil of banking secrecy, could happen by mid-July, the report said.
The report noted that reversal comes as UBS and senior Swiss government officials have mounted a fierce lobbying campaign to persuade Washington to drop the case.
The company said that disclosing client names would cause it to violate Swiss financial secrecy laws and open its executives and bankers to prosecution in Switzerland, it added.
"Washington and Switzerland signed a new tax treaty Friday that would fight tax evasion by enhancing information sharing," the daily noted.
The case could be dropped before July 13, when a federal judge, Alan S Gold of the United States District Court in Miami, is expected to hold a short trial on the issue, although a deal could still collapse, The NYT said.
"The Swiss do not want this to be litigated, and it is possible it would settle before then," the report said quoting an official.
In February, the Justice Department sued UBS in a federal court in Miami to compel the bank to turn over the names, just a day after UBS agreed to pay $780 million to settle accusations that it had defrauded the Internal Revenue Service by allowing wealthy Americans to hide billions of dollars in taxes in secret offshore bank accounts.
Acording to the official NYT said that, of the 52,000 clients on the agency's original list, prosecutors are focused on several thousand ultrawealthy Americans with offshore accounts containing from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Further, the official said that some 30,000 of the accounts are smaller, cash-only accounts, and many of those have been repatriated to American-based banks in recent months.
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