Thursday, October 9, 2014

Raoul Weil Trial Begins Next Week; Some Items for the Run-Up (10/9/14)

Raoul Weil, former head of UBS' bank activities including forays into U.S. tax evasion (see Wikipedia entry here), is scheduled for criminal trial next week in Florida.  So, I picked up some items from the internet.

  • Joint Statement of the Case, here.
  • Ama Sarfo, Ex-UBS Exec Says Swiss Reports Belong In Tax Evasion Trial (Law 360 10/7/14), here.  Discusses move to introduce certain reports by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority which, allegedly, pin the blame subordinates for UBS' U.S. skullduggery as to U.S. taxes.  The following are quotes from the article: 

He believes that Swiss authorities conducted a more thorough investigation into the tax evasion matter than the U.S. Department of Justice, which he says did relatively little sleuthing outside of multiple interviews conducted with one witness, former UBS senior banker Martin Liechti, who was held for four months and released with a nonprosecution agreement after he implicated Weil, according to Weil's motion.  
“The defense is not seeking to admit the reports in order to prove a 'malicious or vindictive' prosecution, as the government now claims,” he says. “It is Mr. Weil’s position that the U.S. government indicted Mr. Weil prematurely. ... The [Swiss Federal Banking Commission] reviewed the evidence available, evidence not available to Mr. Weil except through this motion, and concluded that it was 'not comprehensible' why he was indicted.”

  • Ex-banker heads to Florida to testify in Weil case (swissinfo.ch 10/8/14), here.
  • Joshua Franklin, UBS faces fine of up to $6.3 billion in French tax probe: paper (Reuters 10/3/14), here.  Suggests to me the question of whether UBS got off way too light for its U.S. tax skullduggery.

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