Legal
French Court Upholds UBS Conviction, Slashes Penalty

The case relates to acts that ran between 2004 and 2012.
UBS is reviewing options
including whether to appeal a reduced French penalty for aiding
tax evasion, cutting the earlier sum of €3.7 billion to €3.75
million – largely removing the penalty. The court said, however,
that UBS must pay €800 million in damages and interest, and
confiscated €1.0 billion.
The civil damages sum set yesterday of €800 million was unchanged
from the first instance. The award of civil damages will be
payable upon request by the French state, UBS said in a statement
yesterday. The original penalties had been imposed in 2019,
prompting the bank to appeal.
UBS (France) SA, meanwhile, was acquitted on charges of aiding
and abetting of laundering the proceeds of tax fraud but found
guilty of aiding and abetting of unlawful solicitation. The court
has ordered a fine of €1.875 million, the banking group said. The
fines imposed on UBS AG and UBS France SA would be suspended if
the decision is appealed, the lender added.
The bank had been found guilty in 2019 of helping clients evade
paying tax following a trial in Paris.
The legal battle stemmed from visits more than a decade ago by
Switzerland-based UBS bankers to France where prosecutors said
they were unauthorised to do business (source: Wall Street
Journal, 13 December). Bankers wooed clients on hunting
trips, at the opera and at sporting events such as the French
Open tennis tournament to open accounts in Switzerland and avoid
paying tax, prosecutors alleged at the initial trial.