2013-01-04, 10:10 PM
Swiss Bank Please Guilty in Probe
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...734283146.html
Highlights:
"In the latest blow to Switzerland's centuries-old banking practices, the country's oldest bank pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge in the U.S. on Thursday and admitted that it helped wealthy Americans for years avoid taxes by hiding their income in secret accounts abroad.
... Otto Bruderer, Wegelin's managing partner, entered a guilty plea on the bank's behalf at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday and said the bank between 2002 and 2010, knew U.S. taxpayer's maintained secret accounts at Wegelin in order to evade U.S. taxes.
"Wegelin was aware that this conduct was wrong," Mr. Bruderer said during the hearing. "However, Wegelin believed that, as a practical matter, it would not be prosecuted in the United States for this conduct because it had no branches or offices in the United States and because of its understanding that it acted in accordance with, and not in violation of, Swiss law and that such conduct was common in the Swiss banking industry."
... In court documents, the U.S. claimed that Wegelin "deliberately set out" to capture illegal banking business lost by UBS AG and another unidentified Swiss bank after the U.S. began investigating their operations in 2008 and in 2009...
... UBS entered a deferred-prosecution agreement in 2009, in which it admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. govenrment out of billions of dollars in taxes and avoided criminal charges...
... Wegelin bankers went to great lengths to hide transactions, including communicating with U.S. taxpayers using their personal email accounts and avoided mailing account statements, prosecutors said."
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...734283146.html
Highlights:
"In the latest blow to Switzerland's centuries-old banking practices, the country's oldest bank pleaded guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge in the U.S. on Thursday and admitted that it helped wealthy Americans for years avoid taxes by hiding their income in secret accounts abroad.
... Otto Bruderer, Wegelin's managing partner, entered a guilty plea on the bank's behalf at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday and said the bank between 2002 and 2010, knew U.S. taxpayer's maintained secret accounts at Wegelin in order to evade U.S. taxes.
"Wegelin was aware that this conduct was wrong," Mr. Bruderer said during the hearing. "However, Wegelin believed that, as a practical matter, it would not be prosecuted in the United States for this conduct because it had no branches or offices in the United States and because of its understanding that it acted in accordance with, and not in violation of, Swiss law and that such conduct was common in the Swiss banking industry."
... In court documents, the U.S. claimed that Wegelin "deliberately set out" to capture illegal banking business lost by UBS AG and another unidentified Swiss bank after the U.S. began investigating their operations in 2008 and in 2009...
... UBS entered a deferred-prosecution agreement in 2009, in which it admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. govenrment out of billions of dollars in taxes and avoided criminal charges...
... Wegelin bankers went to great lengths to hide transactions, including communicating with U.S. taxpayers using their personal email accounts and avoided mailing account statements, prosecutors said."