Swiss Private Bank Stays Silent Over Reported Employee Data Transfer To US

Wendy Spires

3 July 2012

Julius Baer has maintained its silence over reports that the Swiss banking group has sent the names of 2,500 employees, former employees and external managers to the US authorities.

The reports center on an open letter sent to Swiss finance minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf from lawyer Douglas Hornung, as reported by Le Temps. In the letter Hornung is reported to have said that Julius Baer had handed over 2,500 dossiers to the US, along with HSBC, which has given over some 1,000. Julius Baer is also said to have made personal documents, emails and details of telephone calls available to US investigators.

Douglas Hornung, who represents a former HSBC executive whose name is thought to be among those given to the US tax office, referred to three separate sources for his information, reports said.

Mario Tuor, spokesperson for the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters, was quoted as having said that the government hasn’t confirmed any figures concerning the transfer of employee names.

Julius Baer declined to comment on the matter when contacted by this publication, as did HSBC.

Julius Baer and its Swiss peers have been caught in a running battle between the US authorities and the government of the Alpine state which has seen the latter's famed banking secrecy laws undermined and client data handed over – developments which would have previously been unthinkable and which some take as an attack on Swiss sovereignty.

After Switzerland came under pressure from the US arising from the crisis with UBS, other Swiss banks like Wegelin and Credit Suisse came under attack by the US authorities. Swiss banks are being accused of not complying with certain codes of conduct as well as breaching foreign laws and the Swiss Parliament is now considering new legislation obliging foreign bank customers to present to their Swiss bank tax reports from their home country indicating that the Swiss bank account is reported in their home country – a so-called “white money policy”.