Charges against Swiss bank dismissed by US

(Bloomberg): The US Justice Department dismissed a landmark criminal case against USB that had prompted the bank to admit it helped Americans evade taxes. Prosecutors said on Friday that Zurich-based UBS, the largest Swiss bank, complied with an 18-month agreement signed in February 2009 to defer prosecution on a charge of conspiring to defraud the U.S. by helping 17,000 Americans hide accounts from the Internal Revenue Service. As part of the agreement, UBS paid $780 million, admitted fostering tax evasion from 2000 to 2007 and handed over account data on more than 250 U.S. clients, piercing the veil of Swiss bank secrecy.

UBS later turned over information on 4,450 more accounts. Prosecutors said UBS honored its pledge to end its cross-border business and cooperate with the government. “The United States agreed that if UBS AG fully complied with all of its obligations,” the case would be dismissed, Justice Department lawyers said in a motion in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “The United State believes that dismissal is appropriate.”

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