ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The Zurich Cantonal Bank (ZKB) is closing all accounts for US domiciled clients, citing growing pressure from the US, according to Tages-Anzeiger 5 January: “The pressure from the United States on foreign banks makes the risks too high.”
Urs Ackermann, ZKB spokesman told the Swiss news agency, ATS, that the measure also affects Swiss expats living in the US.
The bank alerted the clients concerned 23 December, giving them 60 days to transfer their funds to other banks.
The ZKB and other Swiss banks have been accused by US tax authorities of helping American clients hide their taxable assets. The bank had already closed down securities portfolios of US-based clients in 2009.
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Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Federal Council, Switzerland’s cabinet, has stepped into the debate over a ruling by the Swiss Administrative Tribunal, announced 11 January, that the Swiss banking supervisory body had no legal right to tell bank UBS to hand client names to US tax authorities. The Council made it clear 13 January that it played a key role in the decision by Finma, the banking authority, to agree the names should be given, outside the usual procedures called for by a bilateral judicial assistance treaty with the United States
Zurch, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Bank Julius Baer joins the growing ranks of Swiss banks moving out of the US client managed wealth business. The bank announced that it has begun a gradual shift away from American customers, but the move is not hurting the bank’s overall wealth under management: the bank reports that in the first 10 months of 2009 total client assets increased to CHF234 billion and assets under management rose to some CHF 150 billion, up 17%, compared to a year earlier.
Spokesperson Martin Somogyi told GenevaLunch that details about the US client business are not available now, although the bank may provide them when it releases 2009 full year results in February 2010. He clarified that US citizens resident in Switzerland “who are tax compliant” are not part of this group and will remain bank clients.
Update 2, 23:15 Zurich, Switzerland and Miami, Florida, USA (GenevaLunch) – News agency AWP mistakenly published a report Sunday, which was then widely circulated by world media, saying that UBS has been informed by US district court judge Alan Gold in Miami that he will delay hearings scheduled to start tomorrow morning in Miami. The judge is presiding over the case brought by the IRS against the Swiss bank to obtain the names of 52,000 bank clients.
The bank has clarified that a letter written to the judge jointly by the bank and the US government, asking for a delay, will be presented to the judge Monday when the hearing is scheduled to open. The two parties in the case have agreed to ask for the delay to allow the US Justice Department and UBS more time to try to negotiate an out-of-court settlement. Late Sunday night Swiss time the Swiss Foreign Affairs Department confirmed that it supports the request to delay but notes that the negotiations are confidential and no other information will be forthcoming.
Media reports initially noted that the request was filed today, Sunday, which is not correct. AWP/TSR.
Florida, USA, Bern and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is taking UBS to court to obtain the names of 52,000 clients of the bank: these are US citizens who, the US government says, have not declared to the IRS all their financial information. “At a time when millions of Americans are losing their jobs, their homes and their health care, it is appalling that more than 50,000 of the wealthiest among us have actively sought to evade their civic and legal duty to pay taxes,” said John DiCicco, acting assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s tax division, in the DOJ’s statement on the case.
