08/19/2009
UBS to divulge 4,450 account names, more expected
Associated Press has reported that Swiss banking giant UBS AG agreed today to turn over to the IRS the details of 4,450 accounts suspected of holding undeclared assets by American customers, ending an intense trans-Atlantic legal fight. UBS had feared that it might be forced to hand over as many as 52,000 clients.
In return, US authorities are to abandon their lawsuit against UBS in the US.
Despite the agreement is for only 8.5% of the target, it is a turmoil for banking secrecy.
The deal will give the Internal Revenue Service thousands of long-sought account names, and is expected to provide even more UBS clients who voluntarily disclose their financial details. UBS's American customers have until September 23 to confess to the IRS about offshore bank accounts
"This issue is not going away, and people hiding assets and income offshore will find themselves increasingly at risk due to our efforts in this area," IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said.
18:00 Posted in Switzerland | Permalink | Comments (0)
New affair involving Luxembourg regulation
Money Marketing has reported that Administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers is still assessing potential litigation for Keydata investors with missing assets in SLS Capital but says dividend prospects for creditors in the insolvent firm are currently ‘poor’.
As IFA Online explains, the cash had been invested with Luxembourg-incorporated firm SLS Capital, however PwC discovered in June its underlying assets had been "liquidated and may have been misappropriated".
Elsewhere, more than 23,000 other savers face unexpected tax bills on their income after bonds issued by Keydata were found to be ineligible for Isas.
The funds, which had been placed with another Luxembourg company, Lifemark, were not invested properly and savers have been told they will now have to pay tax on their income.
Lifemark is under the supervision of the CSSF: see recent lists securitisation 210709.pdf, pages 1-2 and titrisation 210709.pdf, pages 1-2.
SLS Capital does not seem to be supervised by the CSSF.
As far as Lifemark is concerned, PwC is the auditor, which raises two questions:
1) Is the supervision in Luxembourg less strict when a big four firm is the auditor?
2) What about the possible conflict of interest? I know that PwC Luxembourg specifies on every press release that "PricewaterhouseCoopers refers to the network of member firms of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, each of which is a separate and independent legal entity", but it remains PwC UK and PwC Luxembourg are in the same network and have common interests.
Know more:
06:30 Posted in Luxembourg | Permalink | Comments (1)