French Court to Rule on UBS Tax-Evasion Case in December
September 27 2021 - 11:27AM
Dow Jones News
By Mauro Orru
French judges will rule in December on whether UBS Group AG
should pay a multi-billion-euro fine in a long-running tax-evasion
case in the country.
Switzerland's biggest bank said Monday that the Paris Court of
Appeal had extended deliberations on the matter, with a decision
due on Dec. 13 rather than now.
Back in 2019, judges in Paris found the Zurich-based bank guilty
of illegally recruiting clients in France and helping them to
launder money that wasn't declared to French fiscal
authorities.
A court of first instance had imposed a record fine of 3.7
billion euros ($4.34 billion) on UBS and ordered the bank to pay
EUR800 million in damages to the French government for lost tax
revenue.
UBS had denied wrongdoing in court and appealed the verdict,
taking the case to the Paris Court of Appeal, where a trial
unfolded in March this year.
The bank said in its latest report that the prosecutor asserted
at the end of the trial that the maximum penalty was EUR2.2 billion
and requested the court to award a penalty of at least EUR2
billion, while the French state asked for civil damages of EUR1
billion.
The bank has a chance to appeal the upcoming verdict from the
Paris Court of Appeal, potentially taking the long-running case to
the Cour de Cassation, France's highest court.
UBS and some former employees have been under investigation in
France since 2013.
Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com; @MauroOrru94
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 27, 2021 11:12 ET (15:12 GMT)
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