Swiss Government Reportedly Will Give U.S. Names of UBS Depositors

Swiss tax authorities apparently are preparing to furnish the U.S. Department of Justice the names of U.S. depositors in UBS on the basis that the U.S. government is investigating and/or prosecuting them for fraud. In August 2008, UBS started furnishing data on hundreds of U.S. clients with offshore private banking accounts to the Swiss tax authority. The Swiss banking industry regulator known as EBK urged UBS to turn the records over to the Swiss tax authority. The data includes account names, assets, contact information, records of foreign entities incorporated for the purposes of hiding assets and client authorizations of trades...[more]