Swiss bank UBS has been sued by a group of wealthy U.S. account holders who want to keep their identities and accounts from being revealed to the Internal Revenue Service.
The account holders accuse the bank and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, as well as their chairmen, of breaking Swiss banking privacy laws by disclosing confidential customer information to the U.S. government, according to The New York Times. The lawsuit was filed in Zurich.
Last week, UBS announced a $780 million deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission and agreed to reveal the names of 250 U.S. clients who have been accused of tax fraud. However, the Justice Department is still seeking the names of an additional 52,000 U.S. clients by issuing “John Doe” summonses.
U.S. tax authorities claim the clients are hiding about $14.8 billion in the secret Swiss bank accounts. UBS has vowed to fight the disclosure of the additional names. A U.S. judge on Monday set an April 30 deadline for UBS to respond to the IRS’s case. A trial is set for July 13.
