BERN: Switzerland’s financial watchdog said it was “in contact” with Credit Suisse after authorities in the country were kept in the dark about a massive international fraud probe targeting the bank.
The five-country tax evasion and money-laundering investigation focusing on clients and top employees of Switzerland’s second-largest bank came as a surprise to Swiss officials when it was announced last week.
The head of financial watchdog FINMA, Mark Branson, told reporters that Swiss regulators were now “in contact with the bank”, but declined to discuss details, including whether Swiss investigators were weighing their own inquiry.
Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia have mounted a probe targeting hundreds of people and thousands of Credit Suisse accounts possibly linked to tax evasion.
The Swiss attorney general has voiced concern that “Switzerland was specifically excluded when this operation was organized”.
“The customary practices and rules of international cooperation and mutual assistance were clearly not followed in this case,” the attorney general’s statement said.
Bern has demanded a written explanation from Dutch authorities, who have made arrests and seized property in the case.
The investigation, which British officials say is targeting senior bank employees and its clients, comes as Switzerland is trying to build more transparency into its notoriously secretive banking sector.
Credit Suisse, like other Swiss banks, has begun implementing an information sharing program that automatically sends tax information about its client to relevant authorities in a long range of countries.
The bank has insisted it has done nothing wrong and has a “zero tolerance” approach to tax evasion.
It is not yet clear if the probe is focused on new Credit Suisse accounts or older ones opened in an era of less tax scrutiny at the bank.
FINMA’s Branson suggested the latter may be possible.
“Wealth managers in Switzerland may need more time to deal with the past,” he added.
