Jury In US Clears Former High-Ranking UBS Banker On Tax Charges

Tom Burroughes

4 November 2014

Raoul Weil, who once ran UBS’s global wealth-management business, has been cleared by a Florida jury of a charge that he conspired to help US clients cheat on their taxes.

The jury found that Weil, who agreed to be extradited in 2013, had not been guilty of helping customers hide $20 billion in offshore accounts.

Media reports said the jury took only one hour and 15 minutes to reach its verdict after a three-week trial ended abruptly yesterday, when the defence declined to call any witnesses, asserting that the prosecution had failed to make its case.

UBS declined to comment to WealthBriefing on the matter.

“The jury sent a strong message to the government,” said Matthew Menchel, Weil’s lawyer. “This case should never have been brought,” he was quoted by the Financial Times as saying.

Weil, 54, reportedly at one time the third most senior banker at , was declared a fugitive from US justice in 2009. However he worked openly as chief executive of an independent Swiss asset management business. He was arrested in Italy during a holiday in that country last year.

UBS in 2009 settled criminal and civil charges in the US of aiding wealthy Americans to evade tax and Swiss authorities permitted thousands of client account details to be passed to the US in what was seen at the time as a historic breach of Swiss bank secrecy. Last August, the countries signed a pact under which Swiss banks have the option of saying if they suspect they might be at risk of having violated US laws.