Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Swiss minister for justice and police, press conference on UBS settlement
Update 4 23:15, Update 3 16:40, Update 2 16:27, Update 1 16:12
Ed. note: UBS shares dipped slightly during the afternoon, but began to rise slowly on the Swiss stock market during the press conference. In related news, Doug Shulman, the US Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who led comments by the US on the UBS case, took up his duties as the new chair of the OECD Forum on Tax Administration 18 August.
Bern and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The seven members of the Swiss Federal Council (cabinet) Wednesday afternoon 19 August gave a press conference on the settlement in the UBS case. The government issued the following statement:
[19.08.2009 | Federal Departement of Justice and Police]
During the press conference, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz referred to the hard lessons Switzerland has learned in the course of the past year. He answered a question from the Financial Times about whether or not the language of the English version of details means the IRS will still be able to go on “fishing expeditions”, given that client names will not always be required from the IRS when it seeks judicial help from Switzerland:no, Merz insisted, there will be no fishing expeditions, because the IRS will be required to show good cause.
UBS will not be fined, as part of the settlement, but the Federal Council insisted on the point that the settlement covered first and foremost the bilateral relations between the two countries, rather than UBS. Nevertheless, Merz read out the title of the court case, which specificially mentions UBS, to allay fears that this opens the door wide to the IRS going after more banks.
Micheline Calmy-Rey, Swiss foreign minister, emphasized that the agreement covers existing legal agreements and does not go beyond this context.
Calmy-Rey used the phrase “negotiations were difficult” several times. She underlined that for Switzerland the priority was not to defend a bank “but to defend our legal system” because if the court case in Miami had gone ahead Switzerland would “have been obliged to combat this decision to protect Swiss sovereignty.” She thanked the team which negotiated long and hard from 22 June – 12 August. The result, she noted, was that they were able to “preserve our interests.”
Calmy-Rey had harsh words for the US attitude at the start of the crisis between the two countries, saying that US enthusiasm for negotiating was, at the outset, “weak” and that it was “very difficult to obtain US agreement to negotiate.” The US prosecutors fighting UBS in Miami appeared “ready to go as far as sequestering UBS assets in the US,” which highlighted the conflict of sovereignty between the US and Switzerland. On the other hand, she said “During all the negotiations, the good intentions of Washington were much appreciated” and its desire to sort out a problem with a country it considers a “friend” were apparent.
The cabinet also signed six new taxation treaties 19 August, but did not release the names of the countries. Merz noted that they are all OECD countries. Switzerland must sign a dozen tax treaties by the end of 2009 in order not to be on the organization’s list of “uncooperative” countries in tax matters.
Related:
- CS Monitor feature on impact of the settlement (Ed. note: GenevaLunch editor Ellen Wallace is quoted)
- Swiss federal government documents related to the settlement
- Reuters carries a background article on the size and reach of UBS in the US
- Wall Street Journal
- Bloomberg
Posted by Ellen Wallace on 19 August 2009 at 15:39, last updated on 20 August 2009 at 10:50 | permalink
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 19 August 2009.
Filed under: Politics
Tags: 4,500 names, Business, clients, IRS, OECD, Swiss news, Switzerland, tax settlement, tax treaties, treaty, UBS
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September 24th, 2009 at 12:00 am
[...] be allowed the right to appeal. The IRS is expected to ask for information on the accounts of some 4,500 clients of the bank within a year, part of the negotiations in which the two countries have been involved in recent [...]