Switzerland has strongly requested that a US court reject demands by the US Internal Revenue Service for information about US clients of UBS AG, saying disclosure would violate its sovereignty and international law. The Swiss government’s petition came in a federal court filing in Miami, where the. Internal Revenue Service is seeking to force UBS to reveal the identities of 52,000 Americans suspected of using accounts at the bank to hide about US$14.8B of assets and evade US taxes. “Switzerland’s laws prohibit the release of confidential information to foreign governments when the request has not been made through authorized intergovernmental channels,” the government said in its filing. “If the court were to order UBS to produce evidence from Switzerland, and backed that order with coercive powers, the court would be substituting its own authority for that of the competent Swiss authorities, and therefore would violate Swiss sovereignty and international law,” it said. Echoing a similar filing earlier in the day from UBS, it said Swiss government law also specifically prohibits release of the information demanded by the IRS.
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