For failing to disclose all undeclared accounts of Americans, Union Bancaire Privée has to pony up again.
The Genevan private bank is paying an additional $14 million after U.S. prosecutors found it hadn't entirely come clean on offshore accounts three years ago, the Department of Justice said in a statement. The sum adds to a $188 million fine Union Bancaire Privée, or UBP, paid in 2016.
The initial fine was for managing nearly $5 billion in nearly 3,000 accounts linked to the U.S. – most of it undeclared to U.S. tax officials. The Justice Department said it had found another 97 accounts at UBP, which the bank should have notified U.S. investigators of earlier.
Private Banks Waiting
UBP is one of the dozens of so-called second category banks which came clean under a Swiss government-brokered scheme with the U.S. The Swiss private banks were allowed to self-declare and pay fines based on how eagerly they helped U.S. tax dodgers, while escaping prosecution.
The long-running dispute between Swiss banks and the U.S. began with a fine for UBS in 2009 of $780 million. Credit Suisse, the No. 2 in Switzerland, in 2014 settled for $2.5 billion, the biggest sum paid by any Swiss-based institute in this chapter of Swiss banking.
The last companies left to yet reach a settlement in the first category – or those being pursued criminally – are Pictet, Rahn+Bodmer and Bank Hapoalim, whose Swiss business has been taken over by J. Safra Sarasin, as finews.com reported earlier this month.
