UBS was continued for sending Swiss salespeople to France to “hunt” the rich customers of his French subsidiary. This sentence is well below the one pronounced at first instance.
Le Monde with AFP
The invoice has fallen. The Swiss Bank UBS was sentenced on Monday 13 December to a total of 1.8 billion euros for whitening aggravated tax fraud and unlawful banking in France between 2004 and 2012; a sentence much lower than that pronounced at first instance.
The Paris Court of Appeal has significantly reduced the sanction against the Global Fortune Management, which had been inflicted on February 20, 2019 an unprecedented fine of 3.7 billion euros, so 800 million euros of damages to the state, civil party.
Nearly three years later, the Court of Appeal delivered a fine of 3.75 million euros, a confiscation of a sum of 1 billion euros on the deposit of 1.1 billion paid by The group, as well as the same 800 million euros of damages.
The French subsidiary of the Bank UBS France has been relaxed for the prosecution for complicity of aggravated tax fraud, but condemned for complicity in illegal banking, € 1.175 million – compared to $ 15 million in first instance .
“Hunting” the rich French customers
Four of the six former executives pursued have also been sentenced to up to one year suspended and 300,000 euros of fine, mostly lighter than those inflicted by the court, who had also sentenced five of them.
“The decision is difficult to understand,” reacted the UBS AG lawyer, M e Hervé Temime. “It is a decision whose financial consequences are 2.7 billion (…) in relation to the decision of the court”, but “on the principle, there is a conviction, so we will reflect to see if we form an appeal in cassation “.
The Court of Appeal had to take into account several decisions made between the two trials by the Court of Cassation, which could modify the calculation of the sentence imposed by UBS.
In this file, UBS was continued for sending Swiss salespeople to France to “hunt” the rich customers of its French subsidiary, spotted in particular during receptions, concerts or golf tournaments, in order to convince them to open undeclared accounts in Switzerland. In total, at the appeal trial, the Prosecution had estimated at 9.6 billion the amount of concealed assets over the period.