Swiss banking
Switzerland’s federal government appears poised to crack down on money laundering in the wake of Panama Papers.
Switzerland has delayed and the U.S. has refused to take part in reforms aimed at curbing financial secrecy, according to the Tax Justice Network’s new Financial Secrecy Index.
HSBC has agreed to pay $352 million to settle charges that it helped wealthy clients of its private Swiss bank evade taxes in France.
A judge has ruled that a report on HSBC’s attempts to fix compliance issues should be public, despite resistance from both the bank and the government.
From tax cheats to heated policy debates, 2015 has been a year of tax scandals, reforms and international agreements.
Prosecutors opened the criminal trial of a former HSBC IT worker accused of theft, but the defendant refused to leave France to face charges.
A former head of the embattled bank and current member of Britain’s House of Lords has conceded compliance failures at the bank’s Swiss branch.
Four months after a historic police raid, Geneva’s prosecutor dropped a criminal probe into HSBC, but left the bank with a warning.
Belgian authorities have reportedly investigated about 1000 client accounts from HSBC’s Swiss branch.
The heiress to a major fashion empire has been sentenced to prison for tax evasion in the first of 50 cases expected in France.