Saturday, November 21, 2015

Three More Banks Obtain NPA under DOJ Swiss Bank Program (11/21/15)

On November 19, 2015, DOJ announced here that the following Swiss banks have entered NPAs under the DOJ program for Swiss banks, here.

BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA (BNPP)
$59.783 million
KBL (Switzerland) Ltd. (KBL Switzerland)
$18.792 million
Bank CIC
$3.281 million.

The aggregate amount for these banks is $81,856,000.

I thought the following actions required by the program interesting as a reminder that the DOJ Swiss Bank Program covers only the banks and not their personnel and affiliations, such as asset managers (at least the egregious actors among their personnel and affiliations).
KBL Switzerland committed to providing full cooperation to the U.S. government and has made timely and comprehensive disclosures regarding its U.S. cross-border business.  Among other things, KBL Switzerland has described in detail the structure of its cross-border business for U.S.-related accounts including, but not limited to:
  • The policies and lack of oversight that contributed to the misconduct committed by KBL Switzerland relationship managers and their supervisors;
  • Data on desks and employees with elevated concentrations of U.S.-related accounts;
  • Information on key external asset managers that had significant involvement with U.S.-related accounts;
  • The names and positions of compliance officers and senior managers; and
  • Written narratives on its largest and most problematic U.S.-related accounts.
The banks will be added to the IRS's Foreign Financial Institutions or Facilitators, here.  Accountholders in the listed banks joining OVDP after one of their banks are listed will be subject to the 50% penalty in OVDP (provided that they do not opt out, in which case, who knows?).

Here are the updated statistics for the Swiss Bank Program:

US DOJ Swiss Bank Program
Number
Number Resolved
Total Costs
   U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 1 (Criminal Inv.) *
17
5
$3,470,550,000
   U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 2 **
89
56
$532,208,990
   U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 3
14

$0
   U.S. / Swiss Bank Initiative Category 4
8

$0
Swiss Bank Program Results
128

$4,002,758,990




* Includes subsidiary or related entities counted as separate entities, so the numbers may exceed the numbers the IRS and DOJ posted numbers which combine some of the entities.



** DOJ says original total was 106 but that it expects about 80 to complete the process.



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