4 Jan 2013

Swiss bank to close after US fine

7:15 pm on 4 January 2013

Switzerland's oldest private bank is to shut down after it plead guilty in the United States to helping American customers avoid tens of millions of dollars in taxes.

Wegelin, which was established in 1741, has also agreed to pay $57.8m in fines to US authorities.

It said that once this was completed, it "will cease to operate as a bank".

The BBC reports the bank had admitted to allowing more than 100 American citizens to hide $1.2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service for almost 10 years.

Wegelin, based in the small Swiss town of St Gallen, started in business 35 years before the US declaration of independence.

It becomes the first foreign bank to plead guilty to tax evasion charges in the US.

Other Swiss banks have in recent years moved to prevent US citizens from opening offshore accounts.

The Wegelin case comes four years after a far larger Swiss bank, UBS, agreed to pay a $780m fine to US authorities related to tax evasion charges. UBS also agreed to reveal the details of US account holders.

However, UBS neither pleaded nor was found guilty. Instead it and US prosecutors came to what is called a deferred prosecution agreement, with the fine being paid in exchange for the charges being dropped.