US efforts to force UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, to disclose the names of 52,000 American customers would require the bank to violate Swiss sovereignty and criminal law, bank lawyers said.
A US lawsuit filed last week improperly seeks to enforce summonses from the Internal Revenue Service for the identities of account holders and would trample on Swiss sovereignty, according to a UBS filing in federal court in Miami. “Swiss law strictly prohibits UBS and its employees from disclosing to the IRS the account information located in Switzerland that the IRS seeks,” UBS lawyers wrote. “The IRS’s petition does not acknowledge these restrictions and instead simply ignores the existence of Swiss law and sovereignty.”
By trying to force disclosure, the IRS seeks to expose bank employees to “substantial prison terms, as well as fines, penalties and other sanctions,” bank lawyers wrote. The IRS also wants a judge to force UBS “to violate Swiss law in a manner that will expose it to penalties, civil liability and the possible revocation of its banking license.”
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March 5th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Just invade Switzerland and take over the banks. We’ve got troops close by in Iraq who would probably love to get a change from their dreary sandscape and indulge in some good Swiss chocolate, beer and maidens. I’m sure there are lots on evil Arab terrorists who keep their money in safe haven in Switzerland so we’d be killing two birds with one stone. We’d be giving the IRS what they want and we’d be taking from the evil dooers to further our fight against terrorism. The icing on the cake is that once we occupy Switzerland we could control the currency flow worldwide and we’d have even have more money to expand our own vast economic recue plans of AIG, the banks etc. Obama would go down in history as the first blackish president to conquer Switzerland. In closing, just rember God, bless America and above all SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!