The first appeals in the UBS tax case have been made to Swiss authorities.

Under an agreement made in August between the Swiss and US governments, UBS must hand over names of 4,450 US clients believed to be hiding assets in secret bank accounts. The Swiss have 12 months to transfer all the names and the first 500 were handed over in November.

From that 500, The Federal Administrative Court, in Bern, has now received five appeals. The FAC gave 30 days for individuals to appeal and, under the terms of the agreement, the Swiss Federal Tax Authority would only provide administrative assistance to the US tax authorities if no appeal had been lodged within 30 days.

The remaining 4,000 decrees will now be completed and sent off, with the same 30 day provision.

Criteria used to select which accounts to look at included: holding over SFr1 million at any time between 2001 and 2008, clear fraudulent actions, - such as false documents - and accounts that earned an average of SFr100,000 ($95,500) per year for at least three years.

The Federal Administrative Court was unable to comment at the time of publication.