The bill fell. The Swiss bank UBS was sentenced Monday, December 13 to a total of 1.8 billion euros for aggravated money laundering of tax evasion and illegal banking doorstep in France between 2004 and 2012; a sentence much lower than that pronounced at first instance.
The Paris Court of Appeal significantly reduced the sanction against the global wealth management giant, which on February 20, 2019 was fined an unprecedented 3.7 billion euros, thus 800 million euros. euros in damages to the State, civil party.
Almost three years later, the Court of Appeal fined 3.75 million euros, confiscating 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 in damages.
The French subsidiary of the bank UBS France was acquitted of the prosecution for complicity in aggravated money laundering of tax fraud, but condemned for complicity in illegal banking door-to-door, to 1.175 million euros of fine – against 15 million in first instance.
“Hunt” wealthy French clients
Four of the six former executives prosecuted were also sentenced to suspended sentences of up to one year and a fine of 300,000 euros, most of them lighter than those imposed by the court, which had also sentenced five of between them.
“The decision is difficult to understand”, reacted the lawyer of UBS AG, Me Hervé Temime. “It is a decision whose financial consequences are less than 2.7 billion (…) in relation to the court decision “, corn “In principle, there is a conviction, so we will reflect to see if we form a cassation appeal”.
The Court of Appeal had to take into account several decisions rendered, between the two trials, by the Court of Cassation, likely to modify the calculation of the sentence imposed by UBS.
In this case, UBS was prosecuted for having sent Swiss salespeople to France to “Hunt” the wealthy clients of its French subsidiary, spotted in particular at receptions, concerts or golf tournaments, in order to convince them to open undeclared accounts in Switzerland. In total, at the appeal trial, the prosecution estimated the amount of assets concealed over the period at 9.6 billion.
Tax evasion: the UBS case