Spain's National Court has dropped its investigation into the country's top banker - Banco Santander chairman Emilio Botin - and 11 of his relatives over possible income and wealth tax evasion, it said yesterday, according to media reports.

The case concerned tax returns filed between 2005 and 2009 on accounts the family held in Switzerland's HSBC Private Bank (Suisse). The court said the probe showed the Botin family had regularised its tax affairs before the investigation was opened last year.

Representing the Botin family, Madrid law firm Uria Menendez said the dismissal confirmed "what we said when the case was opened in June 2011: that the family had voluntarily and completely regularised its tax obligations, which were and are all up to date."

Back then, the family said it had paid around €200 million (around $255 million) in back taxes to normalise the situation. The family said the accounts stemmed from assets that Botin's father held outside Spain at the time of his death in 1993.