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Swiss banks inquiry forced Cahuzac’s hand

The discovery by Swiss investigators of an undeclared bank account held by France's disgraced former budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac appeared to have sparked his decision to finally come clean about its existence, a Geneva newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Published: 3 April 2013 12:26 CEST

Swiss banks inquiry forced Cahuzac's hand

Jérôme Cahuzac: Geneva connections. Photo: AFP

Le Temps said a probe by justice officials at two banks, the giant UBS and lesser-known Reyl et Cie, confirmed that Cahuzac had indeed held an account in Switzerland, a fact he had denied repeatedly until finally admitting Tuesday that he had lied.

Cahuzac is at the centre of an explosive tax evasion scandal in France which has forced the Socialist government of President François Hollande on to the defensive, even though he quit as budget minister on March 19th after being charged.

Prosecutors in Geneva acted on a March 12 request for legal assistance from France.

"The banks cooperated, and they are not incriminated, because at the end of the day they haven't done anything criminal," prosecutor Jean-Bernard Schmid told Le Temps, declining to give further details.

"They simply answered our questions and we found what we were looking for."

According to French media, Cahuzac opened an account at UBS in the early 1990s, and closed it in 2000, transferring his funds to Reyl et Cie, which
focuses on clients who are not Swiss residents.

In 2010, he allegedly transferred his money from Reyl et Cie's Geneva branch to one on Singapore.

"On the basis that Swiss legislation on judicial cooperation requires the person under investigation to be informed, Mister Cahuzac's lawyer had access to the files," Schmid said.

"He therefore learned what we had found and apparently decided to draw his own conclusions," he said.

"But we haven't handed over any details to French justice authorities yet and haven't opened a criminal investigation in Switzerland."

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Switzerland's UBS faces €3.7-billion fine as crucial court ruling looms

UBS denies charges it helped French clients evade tax and says it will defend itself "vigorously". Photo: AFP

The trial opened last autumn after seven years of investigations, launched when several former employees came forward with claims of unlawful conduct.

The move came as authorities across Europe cracked down on tax evasion and dubious banking practices in the wake of the global financial crisis which erupted in 2007.

The pressure eventually forced Switzerland to effectively end its tradition of ironclad bank secrecy, by joining more than 90 countries which agreed to automatically share more client account information among each other.

In the UBS case, French authorities determined that more than €10 billion had been kept from the eyes of tax officials between 2004 and 2012.

The National Financial Prosecutor's office urged a €3.7-billion ($4.2 billion) fine, the largest ever sought in France, saying the bank and its directors “were perfectly aware that they were breaking French law” by unlawfully soliciting clients and helping them evade French taxes.

They also sought a €15 million fine for UBS's French subsidiary, and fines of up to €500,000 for six top executives, including Raoul Weil, the former third-in-command at UBS, and Patrick de Fayet, formerly the second-ranking executive for its French operations.

In addition, lawyers for the French state, which is a plaintiff in the case, asked for €1.6 billion in damages.

UBS, which was ordered to post €1.1 billion in bail, has denied the charges and said its operations complied with Swiss law.

It also says that it was “unaware” that some French clients had failed to declare assets in Switzerland, and that prosecutors have not produced any proof, such as client names or account numbers, to back up their fraud claims.

The case is being closely watched by industry executives at a time when Paris and other European capitals are hoping to lure multinational banks from London as Brexit looms.

'Milk tickets'

UBS is accused of organising or inviting prospective clients to prestigious outings such as the French Open or luxury hunting retreats, where UBS's Swiss bankers would meet their “prospects” — something they were not allowed to do under French law.

UBS France directors then used notes called “milk tickets” to keep track of how many “milk cans” – amounts of money – were transferred to Swiss accounts.

They say the system was merely a way to balance out bonuses due to French bankers who were effectively losing a client to their Swiss peers, and the notes were later destroyed.

But investigators claim the “milk tickets” were proof that UBS had a parallel accounting system for keeping the transfers off its official books.

Only one “milk ticket” was found during the inquiry, prompting defence lawyers to argue there was no proof to justify claims of a massive fraud.

Yet prosecutors pointed to the roughly 3,700 French UBS clients who later took advantage of an amnesty offer to regularise their tax declarations with the French authorities.

UBS has been embroiled in a series of similar cases, most notably in the United States, where the authorities said the bank used Switzerland's banking secrecy laws to help rich clients avoid taxes.

In 2009 it paid $780 million to settle charges it helped thousands of American citizens hide money from the Internal Revenue Service, and agreed to turn over information on hundreds of clients, severely denting Switzerland's long tradition of shielding banking clients and their operations from prying eyes.

That case was also prompted by a former American UBS employee turned whistleblower, Bradley Birkenfeld, whose book “Lucifer's Banker: The Untold Story of How I Destroyed Swiss Bank Secrecy” was published in 2016.

Last November UBS was again sued by US authorities, who accuse the bank of misleading investors over the sale of mortgage-backed securities in 2006 and 2007, just before the financial crisis struck.

UBS has denied the charges and said it will defend itself “vigorously”.

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