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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