The end of Secret Swiss banking

Bloomberg reports on the collapse of secrecy in the Swiss Banking industry. From what I hear, Singapore is the new offshore destination for secret banking since their laws are tighter then Switzerland.

If India did something similar to the US, how many skeletons would tumble out of the closet ?

Switzerland’s unprecedented decision to let UBS AG hand U.S. tax authorities clients’ details risks damaging a banking industry that relies on a pledge of confidentiality to win business, legal scholars said.

“This could open the floodgates,” Peter V. Kunz, head of the business law department at the University of Berne, said in a telephone interview today. “Giving in to the U.S. sends a signal to other countries and the European Union. I don’t see what would stop them from acting in the same way.”

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority said yesterday it would allow UBS to pass on some client data to save the country’s biggest bank from criminal charges in the U.S. that it said could have “put its existence at risk.”

Switzerland is being increasingly pressed by countries such as neighboring Germany to amend banking secrecy laws, first introduced in 1934, which they say promote tax evasion. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said last year the Swiss should be put on a “blacklist” of uncooperative tax havens. The European Commission proposed this month to end anonymity for bank account holders within the 27-nation area, and may seek to expand the measure to cover Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

“Swiss banking secrecy will not exist in today’s form in two or three years,” said Dirk Nitzsche, a senior finance lecturer at Cass Business School in London. “Switzerland has already done a lot over the past couple of years. But the international community wants more.”

Offshore Center

Client confidentiality is a cornerstone of Switzerland’s banking industry, which has attracted some 27 percent of all privately held offshore assets, according to the Swiss Banking Association. U.S. law views tax evasion as a crime. Swiss law doesn’t. The Swiss view tax fraud as a more serious offense.

The U.S.’s success “is likely to encourage other tax authorities to pursue claims against the Swiss more vigorously,” Dirk Hoffmann-Becking, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein & Co., said in a note to clients today.

The U.S. is likely to continue to put pressure on both UBS and the Swiss government to make it harder for individuals to move money offshore as President Barack Obama’s administration attempts to finance its economic stimulus plan, he added.

The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, today said it welcomed any effort to improve governance.

“We expect a similar request from EU member states to Switzerland would not receive different treatment,” Maria Assimakopoulou, spokeswoman on tax issues for the agency, told reporters in Brussels today.

Justice Department

Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz described the settlement as an “isolated case” after the U.S. authorities set a Feb. 18 deadline for UBS to reach a deal or face indictment. While it’s “problematic” that the official procedure wasn’t followed, an indictment and possible failure of UBS would have had consequences for the whole Swiss economy, he stressed.

The U.S. Justice Department accused UBS of conspiring to defraud the country by helping 17,000 Americans hide accounts from the Internal Revenue Service. The U.S. will drop the charge in 18 months if the bank reforms its practices, aids prosecutors and pays $780 million. UBS will immediately turn over names of about 250 clients, according to people familiar with the matter.

“The U.S. authorities didn’t want to wait, as a constitutional state is supposed to do, but pressured for an exceptional allowance,” Kunz said. “The legal basis for such actions is very thin.”

‘Problematic’

The government should have followed the information-exchange agreement it has with the U.S. and waited for a Swiss court to rule on the matter, legal professors say. Clients have to be notified before their data is released under Swiss law. The federal administrative court received objections in November.

“What concerns me the most is that evidently legal protection for these clients is being impeded,” said Rainer Schweizer, a law professor at the University of St. Gallen. “Clients have to complain about this to the federal court.”

UBS agreed only to the immediate disclosure of account holders involved in fraudulent or sham offshore account structures, according to people familiar with the matter. The Swiss finance ministry has had some 40 people working on the case, trying to determine whether any of the clients whose information was requested committed tax fraud.

Merz said that data on some 200 to 300 clients that is transferred to the U.S. “clearly” relates to tax fraud rather than tax evasion. UBS Chairman Peter Kurer told Swiss television in an interview that the clients had made “false statements in writing” to the U.S. tax authorities.