UBS confirms word of an agreement in principle on release of U.S. names. The U.S. and Switzerland have reached an agreement in principle to settle a U.S. Department of Justice suit that seeks to compel Zurich-based UBS to provide information on up to 52,000 account holders, a Justice Department attorney has told a federal judge in Miami.

Justice Department lawyer Stuart Gibson told a Judge Alan Gold of the Southern District Court of Florida that the U.S. government and Swiss authorities "have reached an agreement in principle on the major issues," according to Bloomberg. "There are a couple of minor issues that need to get resolved. We expect to be able to resolve them in the coming week."

Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller reiterated Gibson's message as reported by Bloomberg, but declined to elaborate.

Confirmation

UBS, meanwhile, has confirmed the substance of the report. "The U.S. government has informed the court in the 'John Doe Summons' matter that the parties have reached an agreement in principle on the major issues and expect to resolve the remaining issues in the coming week," the Swiss bank says in a press release. "A status conference among the parties has been scheduled for 7 August 2009."

The bank adds: "At the request of the U.S. and Swiss Governments, we have agreed not to comment further at this time."

U.S. tax and law authorities have been attempting to make UBS hand over details on thousands of its clients. Swiss banking law forbids the disclosure of such data. Though tax evasion is a crime in jurisdictions such as the U.S. and the U.K., it isn't recognized as a criminal offence in the Alpine state.

Recent reports suggest that U.S. authorities are looking for information on far fewer than 52,000 Americans with UBS bank accounts in Switzerland. That's the number most often bandied about in media reports.

In a fresh twist to the woes of Swiss banks, U.S. prosecutors are widening their investigation into banks suspected of selling offshore tax-evasion services to wealthy U.S. citizens, according to reports. The probe now includes a "small" -- and so far unidentified -- private bank in Zurich.

The possibility of the U.S. and Switzerland reaching a settlement next Friday makes unnecessary a two-day hearing that Judge Gold had scheduled to begin on 3 August, according to Bloomberg.

Last winter UBS admitted to having helped a couple of hundred U.S. clients evade taxes and agreed to pay the U.S. $780 million in fines related to the matter. To date, however, UBS has maintained that it is under no obligation to give U.S. authorities -- specically the IRS -- information on those of its U.S. clients with Switzerland-based ban accounts.

With the recently added retail-brokerage might of Merrill Lynch, Bank of America has supplanted UBS as the world's largest wealth management firm, according to rankings provided by Scorpio Partnership, a London-based consultancy to the private-banking industry. -FWR

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