The US DOJ’s case against swiss banking giant UBS was delayed yesterday when all three parties – UBS, the US, and Switzerland – asked the Federal District Court in Miami to postpone the trial date until August 3rd so that the US and UBS could continue working out a settlement.  The two sides are scheduled to update the judge on their progress on July 29th.  From the Financial Times:

Prospects for a settlement between the sides improved after the US Department of Justice, UBS and the Swiss government asked for a three-week delay to the hearing to allow time for an “alternative” resolution to US demands for the names of 52,000 US taxpayers holding offshore accounts.

However, the DoJ said any settlement “would necessarily’’ include requiring UBS to provide information on a “significant number” of individuals.

The request came as the DoJ sought to put further pressure on UBS by saying in a separate court filing that it would consider imposing monetary sanctions on the bank if the court ordered UBS to turn over names under an IRS summons and it failed to do so.

This is a major development in the case which was originally scheduled to go to trial today. The legal battle has increased diplomatic tensions between the US and Switzerland in recent months as it threatens to strike a fatal wound to the European country’s famed banking secrecy laws.

Global Financial Integrity Director Raymond Baker was on American Public Media’s Marketplace this morning discussing the case:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Tweet

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 11:04 am and is filed under Blog.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.