Switzerland and France have managed to agree on an interpretation of the revised double taxation agreement signed by both countries. This, in addition to an official agreement on how to handle the theft of HSBC data, puts a formal end to the diplomatic rows which erupted between the two countries at the beginning of the year.

The Swiss federal department of finance will therefore end its blockade stopping the DTA being approved by parliament.

As reported by this publication at the end of January, Hans-Rudolf Merz, the Swiss finance minister, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the row about client data stolen from HSBC Private Bank in Geneva and bought by the French government was over, after having met Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president.

Mr Merz and the French budget minister Eric Woerth said in a telephone conversation last week that the issues have now been formally resolved.

Concerning taxation, the settlement states that as a rule the country making a request for an exchange of banking information will have to provide the name of the bank of the taxpayer concerned.

However, in exceptional cases, when the requesting country is unable to obtain the name of the bank, it shall provide as much data as needed by the other country to identify the bank.

“The country to which the request is made will respond to such a request provided that it is in line with the principle of proportionality and does not constitute a fishing expedition,” the Swiss federal department of finance said in a statement. The DTAs Switzerland has initialled and signed with a number of member states of the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation are supposed to prevent any form of fishing expeditions.

Concerning the data stolen from HSBC in Geneva, the countries agreed that France will not request administrative assistance for any cases that came to light through the stolen data.

In the case of requests from third countries, the French authorities will notify the Swiss authorities and transmit the requested information to the third countries.

France has also already sent a copy of the data to the Swiss authorities.