Senators Urge Extradition of Indicted Swiss Bank Enablers (3/18/14)

Senators Levin and McCain, key members of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations which held a recent hearing on offshore bank tax evasion, has written DOJ to seek extradition from Switzerland of indicted enablers.  The letter is here.

The body of the letter is short, so I quote it in full:

We are writing to urge a change in the current policy of the Department of Justice (DOJ) which, for more than five years, has not sought extradition from Switzerland of a single Swiss national charged with criminal conduct related to aiding and abetting U.S. tax evasion. 

During the hearing held by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on February 26, 2014, you testified that DOJ has charged 35 bankers and 25 financial advisors with misconduct related to facilitating U.S. tax evasion.  Of those, 6 have been convicted or pled guilty, and the majority of the rest apparently live openly in Switzerland, having avoided trial on their alleged crimes for years.  Yet you also testified that DOJ has not asked Switzerland to extradite any of those defendants, because DOJ believes “the Swiss will not extradite its citizens.”  

The extradition treaty between the United States and Switzerland, however, does not bar the extradition of Swiss nationals who assisted U.S. nationals in the commission of criminal tax evasion, and it is time to test the Swiss government’s professed willingness to cooperate with international tax enforcement efforts and put an end to its nationals participating in criminal tax offenses.  While Article 3 of the U.S.-Swiss treaty provides some discretion to the Swiss government to deny U.S. extradition requests related to tax offenses, that discretion is limited.  The treaty states that it can “not be used to shield from extradition underlying criminal conduct, such as fraud …or falsification of public documents.”  At least some of the charges in the indictments filed against Swiss bankers and intermediaries appear to meet that standard.  Additionally, Article 8, which provides an exception to extradition requests that name a treaty partner’s nationals, is limited to circumstances where “[t]he Requested State [Switzerland] … has jurisdiction to prosecute that person for the acts for which extradition is sought.” Switzerland does not consider tax evasion a crime, and therefore cannot prosecute such cases, which means the Article 8 exception should not apply to U.S. extradition requests to Switzerland for cases related to tax evasion.  

Given that the current treaty does not foreclose the cooperation of the Swiss government in extradition requests for tax cases, we urge DOJ to at least attempt to use the authorities laid out in that treaty.  Even if a request is unsuccessful, it will inform both Switzerland and its citizens that the United States is ready to make full use of available legal tools to stop facilitation of U.S. tax evasion and hold alleged wrongdoers accountable. 

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

The extradition treaty is here.  The Senate Report on the extradition treaty is here.

My only comment is to wonder whether the U.S. really wants to extradite all these enablers -- the ones indicted and the ones who may be indicted in the future.  Extradition, prosecution, conviction, sentencing and incarceration can require a lot of resources that might be better devoted elsewhere.  So, perhaps extraditing a small subset might be the best way to go.  The U.S. has already made a point by indicting the entire group, who -- given the Raoul Weil example -- may restrict their freedom as a form of punishment.  See Switzerland as Club Fed for Swiss Enablers of U.S. Tax Crimes (Federal Tax Crimes Blog 10/24/31), here.