Nearly a decade after Credit Suisse's plea agreement with the US over helping American citizens evade taxes, the US Senate Finance Committee said it found a potential criminal tax conspiracy.
The US Senate Finance Committee found «major» violations by Credit Suisse of a 2014 $2.6 billion plea agreement with the Department of Justice (DoJ) on helping thousands of wealthy American citizens evade taxes.
The report with the not-very-subtle title of «Credit Suisse's Role in US Tax Evasion Schemes» comes on the same day that UBS announced it is bringing back Sergio Ermotti to help with the takeover of Credit Suisse.
Violations include a previously unknown, ongoing, and potentially criminal conspiracy for failing to disclose nearly $100 million in undisclosed offshore accounts that belong to a single family of US taxpayers, according to a statement released by the office of Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden.
No Clean Slate
«Credit Suisse got a discount on the penalty it faced in 2014 for enabling tax evasion because bank executives swore up and down they’d get out of the business of defrauding the United States. This investigation shows Credit Suisse did not make good on that promise, and the bank’s pending acquisition does not wipe the slate clean,» Wyden said.
Credit Suisse Cooperating
«Credit Suisse does not tolerate tax evasion. In its core, the report describes legacy issues, some from a decade ago, and we have implemented extensive enhancements since then to root out individuals who seek to conceal assets from tax authorities,» Credit Suisse said in a statement made available to finews.com.
It went on to say that is actively cooperating with US authorities, including the DoJ to address remaining legacy conduct and policy concerns and will continue to do so.
Catnapping Regulators
Due to a combination of «greedy Swiss bankers and catnapping government regulators,» the report said that between November 2012 to February 2013, a US-Latin American family was able to transfer tens of millions of dollars from Credit Suisse to a group of unnamed Swiss banks.
The funds were sent to Union Bancaire Privee (UBP) and PKB Private Bank in Switzerland, the committee said, citing confidential sources. It added that any failure to identify and report accounts held by the family could be a violation of the non-prosecution agreements they reached. If true for UBP, it would be its third violation of such an agreement.
Undeclared Accounts
Furthermore, the committee asked Credit Suisse for any information on large undeclared accounts with over $20 million belonging to wealthy US citizens.
Credit Suisse provided the committee with 23 such accounts by the time the investigation was concluded, and more reviews are underway. Many of the cases appear to include dual US citizens where the client’s US citizenship or residency was not disclosed. Of the 23 potentially undeclared accounts over $20 million identified by Credit Suisse, 13 were disclosed to the Committee just days before the release of the report.
The committee found the total amount of money that was concealed in violation of the 2014 plea agreement is over $700 million, according to the statement.
«The Committee is concerned that years after signing its plea agreement, Credit Suisse is still disclosing hundreds of millions of dollars in large undeclared accounts belonging to ultra-high net worth US persons in response to heightened scrutiny from Congress and DOJ,» the committee said.
Russian Sanctions
However, the US judiciary is reportedly also involved in another case with a group of banks, among them Swiss banks, facing scrutiny in connection with the Russia sanctions. The suspicion is banks may have helped sanctioned oligarchs circumvent the restrictions.
