The tax dispute between Germany and UBS was thought to be a closed chapter. The prosecutors in Baden-Wuerttemberg however are still working to get the Swiss bank to pay a substantial fine.
The prosecution office in Mannheim wants the German unit of UBS to pay a fine of 82 million euros ($92 million) for abetting tax avoidance, according to Swiss newswire «AWP». The investigators allege that Switzerland’s biggest bank helped countless Germans avoid paying taxes in the years from 2001 through 2012. A court in Mannheim will have to decide about the case.
In 2014, UBS paid 300 million euros to settle a tax dispute with North Rhine Westphalia, a deal that was seen as the end of the tax dispute with Germany. Not least because it meant that the German judiciary wasn’t allowed to prosecute the Swiss group’s main office anymore.
A Critical Moment for UBS
Prosecutors in Mannheim however have been investigating the company in a different case, which has also had its setbacks. In 2012 they were forced to close a probe into UBS because they couldn’t provide hard evidence of UBS wrongdoing. In 2015, the investigators searched the apartments of three UBS relationship managers and have since directed their inquiries at the German business of the bank, which was still legally possible.
The case comes at a difficult time for the UBS management after the annual general meeting failed to back it in a vote of confidence last week – shareholders disapproved of its handling of the legal dispute with France, where UBS faces paying a fine of several billion euros. UBS has appealed the French verdict.
