Swiss bank fined for secret U.S. accounts

The discovery of a handful of undisclosed offshore accounts is costing a Swiss bank another US$14 million.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has revised its non-prosecution agreement with a private Swiss bank, Union Bancaire Privée, UBP SA (UBP), which previously admitted to managing almost 3,000 accounts for U.S. taxpayers.

Under the initial agreement in 2016, the bank agreed to pay a US$187.8 million penalty in order to avoid possible criminal prosecution in connection with its unreported U.S. accounts.

The revised deal will see the bank pay an additional US$14 million after the DoJ found that UBP failed to report another 97 accounts that should have been disclosed under the original agreement.

“In reaching today’s agreement, UBP acknowledges that there were additional U.S.-related accounts that it knew about, or should have known about, but that were not disclosed,” the DoJ said, adding that the bank “fully cooperated” after discovering the additional accounts.

The DoJ reached non-prosecution agreements with 80 Swiss banks between March 2015 and January 2016, and imposed more than US$1.36 billion in penalties under the program.

James Langton

James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994.