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New UBS chief signals flexibility on tax evasion: report
AFP - 1 hour 50 minutes ago
GENEVA (AFP) - - Oswald Gruebel, the new chief executive of Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS, said in a newspaper interview published Sunday that he supported changes to banking secrecy to counter tax evasion.
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Asked about an opinion poll which indicated that a majority of Swiss would support legal assistance for foreign authorities seeking tax evaders, Gruebel told Le Matin Dimanche: "I share that view."
Such assistance is currently outlawed under Swiss banking secrecy.
"I am among those who want to maintain banking secrecy and also of those who want to offer, for tax evasion, a viable long term solution," added the banker, who took over as chief executive last Thursday.
However, Gruebel said that other financial centres should be placed on the same footing, including the Channel Islands, Caribbean havens, Austria and Luxembourg.
"Even the United States has financial centres where the laws differ from the description that they give to the outside world," he added.
The US Justice Department filed a lawsuit in the United States last month to force UBS to reveal the identities of 52,000 US customers who allegedly evaded taxes, stepping up the pressure on the Swiss bank.
UBS had earlier agreed to a 780 million dollar settlement on charges of aiding tax fraud in the United States.
Gruebel, a German national, said the bank had to explain at a US Senate hearing in the coming week that it could not break laws in its home country.
"We have to find a political solution," he added.
The 65 year-old's comments added to signs this weekend that the Swiss were ready to soften banking secrecy following pressure from the European Union and the United States, but not to give it up altogether.
Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz said Saturday that Switzerland might have to make some "concessions" on banking secrecy to avoid being placed on an international blacklist.
German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck has threatened to have Switzerland placed on the OECD's list of uncooperative havens.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said Sunday that she took the pressure from Britain, Germany and the United States "very seriously".
"We are a cooperative country. We are open to discussions and negotiations. Therefore we don't belong on a blacklist," she told the Sonntagszeitung newspaper.
But she acknowledged that it took too long to deal with the original US request regarding UBS on tax fraud -- more than six months -- revealing a "systemic problem".
Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf is due to meet US Attorney General Eric Holder in Washington on Monday for talks that are expected to include the UBS issue, her ministry said.
Banking secrecy law prohibits Swiss banks from revealing information to domestic or foreign authorities about their clients, except in cases involving recognized criminal investigations.
In Switzerland, only tax fraud is regarded as a crime, not tax evasion, a distinction that does not exist in most other major economies.
In the opinion poll in Sonntagsblick, 56 percent supported the idea that evasion should be put on the same footing as fraud, allowing legal assistance, while 35 percent of those polled rejected it.
However 56 percent also felt Switzerland should staunchly defend banking secrecy for foreigners.
Some 602 people were questioned for the poll by the Isopublic institute, with a margin of error of 4.1 percent.
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Oswald Gruebel, seen here, the new chief executive of Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS, said in a newspaper interview that he supported changes to banking secrecy to counter tax evasion.
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