BERN: The U.S. Justice Department said that BSI SA is the first Swiss bank to successfully navigate a self-reporting program for hidden American accounts.
Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery said during a media briefing that Lugano-based BSI will pay a $211 million penalty, an amount based on the undeclared U.S. assets harbored by the bank. According to the rules of the voluntary program, BSI has won assurances that it won’t be prosecuted in the U.S. for allegedly aiding tax evasion, in exchange for opening up its books and acknowledging past misconduct.
The Justice Department unveiled its self-reporting program for Swiss banks in 2013, and it is widely seen as an effort to bring the U.S.’s long-running legal clampdown on tax evasion aided by lenders in the Alpine country to a close. The legal effort began in earnest with the Justice Department’s 2009 deferred prosecution agreement with Zurich-based UBS AG. UBS acknowledged helping American clients evade taxes, and agreed to pay $780 million.
