Swiss judges denied an appeal by wealthy clients of UBS in France against a handover of their data to French tax officials.
The court ruling addresses a four-year-old legal aid request by France, which is looking to root out undeclared money held in offshore Swiss accounts. Specifically, French investigators want information from Switzerland on roughly 40,000 accounts. Switzerland agreed to do so, but this simply set of a lengthy court battle on behalf of five clients to block their data from being handed over.
Switzerland's federal administrative court recently denied their objections, in a ruling made public on Thursday, according to Swiss media «AWP». The five plaintiffs have argued that French request for legal assistance to be a so-called fishing expedition, or an unsubstantiated shot in the dark to attempt to gain information.
«Fishing» Query Settled
The court noted that the question of «fishing» for data had already been decided by Switzerland's supreme court. In 2019, it had ruled that French officials were not «fishing» baselessly for information from as recently as 2015, by basing their case on data from 2006 until 2008.
The Swiss administrative ruling is subject to appeal. The legal tussle figures prominently in a precedent-setting criminal appeal by UBS, which recently had its appeal to a 2019 guilty verdict heard in Paris.
