The trial in the tax dispute between UBS and France is entering the next phase.
September 27 is the date now set when the French Court of Cassation will consider the Swiss bank's appeal against its sentence to pay 1.8 billion euros ($1.93 billion), the French news agency «AFP» reported Wednesday evening.
Citing judicial sources, the report said the French supreme court has to review the correct application of the law in the appeal, but not the facts, after which weeks of debate are likely to follow before a decision is handed down.
Illegal Activities
At the end of 2021, UBS was found guilty of aiding and abetting money laundering in a second instance, when an appeals court ruled that between 2004 and 2012, the Swiss bank illegally solicited wealthy French taxpayers to encourage them to open untaxed accounts in Switzerland.
The appeals court fell well short of the 2019 first-instance ruling, which had ordered UBS to pay 4.5 billion euros. The fine from the second-instance ruling is made up of a penalty payment of one billion euros and a payment of 800 million euros in damages to the French state.
Following UBS's appeal, criminal penalties were suspended, although the civil one was not. The French Finance Ministry confirmed to «AFP» that damages of 800 million euros were already paid.
