Singapore banned a long-time UBS banker for dishonest conduct. The Swiss citizen duped the wealth giant into believing that wealthy clients were paying their taxes.
The city-state's financial regulator is banning Paris Michele for three years because the Swiss banker forged documents and falsified company emails while at UBS, it said in a statement. Michele, who was convicted of forgery in Singapore two years ago and couldn't immediately be reached for comment, has worked for Swiss-based UBS since 2002, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Michele forged letters from law firms outside Singapore to trick UBS into thinking that some wealthy offshore clients were in fact paying taxes at home, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said. He also falsified emails during backup checks of potential clients via financial intermediaries.
Singapore Sanctions
MAS' ban of Michele, which effectively shuts him out of the financial services industry until 2022, underscores Singapore's efforts to keep its financial center untainted. Two years ago, the regulator named and shamed in the 1MDB scandal, including booting one Swiss private banker and banning Goldman Sachs' former top banker in the region.
«Mr. Michele's deceitful behaviour, which involved forging of customer due diligence documents, could have seriously compromised UBS' processes to combat money laundering and terrorism financing,» MAS executive Loo Siew Yee said. «His subsequent acts of falsifying other documents demonstrate a clear pattern of dishonesty. Such misconduct must be dealt with firmly to preserve the integrity of our markets.
Black Eye in 1MDB
Michele, a Ticino native, began his career at UBS in Lugano in 2002, moving to Singapore three years later, according to his LinkedIn. His lists his most recent role at UBS as director in wealth management financial intermediaries for the Asia-Pacific region. A source at the Swiss bank said he left UBS in 2014.
The banker doesn't appear to have enriched himself with the forgery, nor to have directly harmed UBS, according to MAS. A spokeswoman for UBS didn't comment. The Swiss bank notched up a black eye in the 1MDB scandal. UBS was also sanctioned in Kong KongKongsanctioned in Kong Kong three months ago for how it ran initial stock listings.
