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Business Crimes BulletinFeaturesLitigationTaxWhite Collar Crime

Swiss Bank Pays for Helping U.S. Clients Evade Taxes

By Sue Reisinger
September 01, 2018

Here's a sure way to lose half your cooperation credit in a federal investigation: Let your in-house counsel advise employees not to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors. That's what Swiss government-owned Zürcher Kantonalbank did, and now it owes the United States $98.5 million in restitution, forfeiture and fines. The Zurich-area institution is the largest canton (township) bank and the fourth largest bank in Switzerland.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan announced in July that the agency had reached a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with the ZKB. The bank admitted to conspiring to help U.S. taxpayer-clients evade about $39 million in taxes by hiding their funds in offshore accounts at the bank from 2002 to 2009.

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