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UBS could be sued in the US if the Swiss parliament fails to agree to a deal passing data on the bank's US clients to US tax authorities, as was originally agreed last August, Switzerland's finance minister said.
Hans-Rudolf Merz told the newspaper SonntagsBlick he hoped parliament, which will vote on the measure in June, would approve the agreement, though he could not be sure. The report was translated by Reuters.
"The justice and finance departments of the US administration signaled to us that they'd again take up the legal cases against UBS, which are now suspended," Merz was quoted as saying. "These criminal and civil suits could take a long time."
The Swiss and US governments agreed last August to a deal under which UBS would transfer client account information on up to 4,450 wealthy US citizens to the Internal Revenue Service. The deal was part of a civil case. In a separate, criminal case, UBS has agreed to pay $780 million in to settle charges of aiding tax evasion.
UBS has ceased to provide offshore banking in the US, a move also followed by Wegelin and Julius Baer, two other Swiss banks. The US-Swiss agreement represents a partial breach of Switzerland’s centuries-old tradition of banking secrecy.
Last August’s agreement, however, was potentially derailed after a Swiss administrative court ruled in January that the data transfer was unlawful, a move which forced the Swiss government to adjust the settlement, which needs parliament's approval to become effective.
The SVP party says it will vote against the UBS deal. It could kill the deal if joined by the Social Democrats.
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