MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Swiss banking secrecy release limited to 8 US clients

Banking details of eight US clients of Switzerland's UBS bank have been sent to US authorities despite a Swiss court order blocking the move reported the Tribune de Geneve. But a request with a greater list of names seems doomed according to Swiss officials.

According to Tribune which quotes the spokesperson for the Swiss bank regulator FINMA, the court's ruling on Friday "apparently came too late", with the information on the eight having been sent along with the names of more than 240 other US clients from UBS. "The information has already arrived in Washington" said Alain Bischel speaking for FINMA. The tribunal's order forbade Swiss bank regulator FINMA from giving the plaintiffs' "banking documents to third parties, particularly US authorities," or risk legal proceedings. The US Justice Department is trying to break through Switzerland's banking secrecy to go after US tax evaders hiding their money in the European country. Meantime the incident has spilled to the political arena with Switzerland's right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) calling for an immediate Parliament debate and demanding retaliation against the US probe into UBS and threats to the prized banking secrecy. The populist SVP, the country's biggest party, said Switzerland should not take in any detainees from the US terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which the Swiss government said last month it could consider helping shut the camp down. Switzerland should also reconsider its policy of representing the US in countries where it has no diplomatic presence, the parliamentary SVP said in a statement. SVP added that gold stored by the Swiss National Bank in the US should be repatriated and Switzerland should ban the sale of US funds in the country to protect Swiss investors after the "pitiful" failure of US regulators. SVP has one minister in the seven-member Swiss government which is made up of the biggest four parties but its populist policies usually master consensus in Swiss public opinion and the political establishment. Last Wednesday UBS reached a settlement with US authorities in which it admitted to US tax fraud and agreed to pay 780 million dollars. The bank was also ordered to hand over details of 250 to 300 US clients. However UBS rejected the new US government lawsuit on Thursday asking that the bank disclose the identities of some 52,000 US customers who allegedly evaded taxes. US tax authorities argue US citizens are hiding about 14.8 billion US dollars in assets in secret Swiss bank accounts. But Phillip Roth, head of the Swiss banking association, said he did not think the civil case seeking thousands more names had much chance of success and it could take years before a decision. "It is a clear 'fishing expedition' without any evidence. Such proceedings will in no way be supported by Swiss law" he told the Tagesanzeiger daily. "It is anything but certain whether a US judge will support such an attempt." Eugen Haltiner, president of the FINMA regulator, interviewed by Neue Zuercher Zeitung said he did not think the civil case would threaten the settlement of the criminal charges and said he expected UBS to defend itself by saying it had to respect Swiss laws, which protect banking secrecy. "We can assume that this case is not very dangerous," he said. "The U.S. tax authorities want to signal to their own citizens that they are pursuing the case, to encourage them to voluntarily own up." Despite tough Swiss laws protecting bank client privacy, Finma and the Swiss government said they had no choice but to let UBS (Switzerland's largest) hand over some names data to avoid a criminal case which could have threatened the bank's existence and hurt the Swiss economy, heavily dependent on the banking industry. It is estimated that nearly a third of the wealth that is stashed in tax havens around the world is in Swiss banks -- an estimated 2.2 trillion US dollars.