HSBC bank in Geneva
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The double taxation treaty between Germany and Switzerland may be signed by Federal Councellor Hans-Rudolf Merz before he steps down this month.
The agreement with Germany, whose citizens hold more money in Swiss banks than those of any other nation, has led to frequent friction between the two countries, as Germany attempts to claw back undeclared money in secret Swiss bank accounts.
The Swiss have been particularly troubled by several cases of theft of bank client details, which have then found their way into the hands of foreign tax authorities.
One of the ideas originally floated by the Swiss side was an anonymous tax on all foreign-held bank accounts in Switzerland, which would then be handed over to the foreign tax authorities. Account-holders who declare their assets to their home countries could expect to have the tax returned; the others would forfeit the amount. The idea was originally refused by the then German finance minister, but negotiators have been taking another look at it.
Numbers don’t correspond to files handed back to Geneva bank
Nice, France (GenevaLunch) – The public prosecutor in Nice, Eric de Montgolfier, told a group of reporters Wednesday 14 April that 80,000 account holders have been identified, 8,000 of them French, from the files stolen from HSBC bank’s Geneva offices in 2007. The former HSBC employee who stole them, Herve Falciani, has been given a new identity by the French and he appears to have helped the government decrypt the files.
The figures don’t, however, correspond to those the bank says it found when Swiss authorities gave it a copy of most of the data in March.
HSBC in Geneva said 11 March 2010 that while the number of accounts was greater than the original 10 mentioned in 2009 by the bank, the total number was 24,000, well below the figure provided this week by the French prosecutor. Of those, 9,000 had left the bank, since the stolen data covered accounts that dated back to 2006.
Falciani’s theft covered several months but it is not yet clear how he did it
[correction 13 March] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The extraordinary under-assessment by HSBC of the number of bank accounts implicated in the theft of data from Geneva begins to make more sense when the timeline the bank provided to the press Thursday 11 March is studied. French authorities and then Swiss have been privy to the data for months, but the bank says its first credible clue about the scope of the theft came only one week ago, 3 March.
Hervé Falciani stole data linked to accounts of some 24,000 clients in Geneva, some 15,000 of whom are still clients, but the bank initially said only 10 accounts were involved. How he did it is still unclear and is under investigation by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s office. Falciani is in hiding in France: France, like many countries including Switzerland, does not extradite its own citizens, which puts him out of the reach of Swiss investigators.
Timeline provided by HSBC
HSBC victim of data theft
Update 21:15 (last paragraph) Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The French authorities have responded favourably to Switzerland’s demand to return the data stolen by a former employee of HSBC Private Bank in Geneva, reportedly amounting to 130,000 client names. French Ministry of Justice officials confirmed that the stolen laptop was to be returned “very quickly”.
The encrypted client data, taken from the bank by former IT employee Hervé Falciani, was turned over to the French public prosecutor’s office in Nice, where investigations were opened into French clients of the bank suspected of money-laundering. Switzerland had asked the French authorities for judicial assistance earlier this year when Falciani was found to have stolen the data and moved to France. As part of the cross-border cooperation, Swiss authorities supplied the French with the means to decipher the data on the laptop.
Hans-Rudolf Merz
Update 18:00 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – France says it did not break any French laws in accepting stolen data from a Swiss branch of HSBC, and right-wing politicians in Paris called for Switzerland to be put onto an OECD black list of tax havens if the Swiss refuse to ratify a pending treaty with France over the theft. Switzerland says that France, in failing to provide judicial assistance in the matter, is not respecting the terms or spirit of the treaty.
The Swiss government late Wednesday 16 December said it intends to suspend the ratification of the new double taxation treaty with France. The news followed comments to the media by France’s budget minister, Eric Woerth, that he plans to start judicial proceedings based on information stolen from the Geneva branch of HSBC.
Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz says that he is asking the Swiss commission in charge of the ratification process, scheduled to meet in February, to hold off until the circumstances surrounding the theft, which took place in Switzerland, are clearer. The French citizen who stole the data has come forward publicly, and he is now being given a new identity in the south of France.
At issue for the Swiss: France has not responded to Switzrland’s repeated requests for judicial assistance, and no information has been provided about the stolen data. The theft, which started in July 2008 by an IT employee at the bank, is illegal under Swiss law. “In a state of law, this type of theft is unacceptable,” Merz told media Wednesday.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The French public prosecutor in Nice, southern France, Eric de Montgolfier, has revealed that his office is in possession of confidential details of up to 130,000 clients from HSBC’s private banking branch in Geneva. The data was acquired by the French state when Hervé Falciani, a former IT employee of the bank, left HSBC with the details stored on his laptop. Journal de Dimanche reports that 3,000 of the bank’s clients are French citizens.
The whistleblower, who is reported to have received a new identity and is said to be in hiding in fear of his life, told French public television that he acted out of idealism: “Either you bury your head in the sand or you try to do something about it.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevLunch) – The French justice minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, confirmed Thursday 10 December that Switzerland has asked for administrative assistance in the case of data theft from HSBC Bank in Geneva, and that French authorities would answer it, reports Swiss-German newspaper NZZ. A former employee of the British bank’s private banking arm has provided French authorities with client details, several media sources report. The former IT specialist, variously described as a dual French-Italian or French-Swiss national, has been given a new identity and is living under protection in the south of France.
