Washington, DC (GenevaLunch) – The US Justice Department, in a document obtained by Swiss wire service ATS, is reported to be insisting that it will not relax its stance on Swiss bank UBS. A US federal court in Miami 13 July will hear a civil case brought by the IRS tax authority against the Swiss bank. The IRS says UBS must hand over the names of owners of 52,000 bank accounts. UBS and the Swiss government say it cannot do so because the bank would be breaking Swiss banking secrecy and data protection laws, and that the demand by the IRS in any event runs counter to the existing US-Swiss treaty that covers demands for assistance in criminal cases.

According to the document obtained by ATS from an undisclosed source, in a story carried by TSR, Swiss television, the “Justice minister”, presumably Attorney General Eric Holder [Ed note: no name is provided] is reported to declare that UBS has not acted in good faith, as it has argued, but in response to pressure put on it from the US government. “It is time for UBS to accept the consequences of its actions. In other words, UBS must reveal the identities of all its American clients who hold secret bank accounts with UBS.” [Ed. note: translation, GenevaLunch] The minister ends by saying that “if UBS does not fully comply the court will order it to do so,” according to the TSR story.

In late the New York Times erroneously reported that the Justice Department was ready to drop the charges against the bank, a report the government labeled as false 23 June.

The first US client of UBS to be charged, among 252 whose names were provided by the bank to the IRS in February 2009, was formally charged 1 April 2009 with filing a false tax return and last week, 25 June, he pleaded guilty.

Background, “US drops case against UBS”, 20 March 2009, GenevaLunch

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