UBS whistleblower awarded token damages by Paris court
Stéphanie Gibaud: 'They harassed me in order to break me'
Antoine Kowalski
A former UBS employee has been awarded the symbolic amount of €3,000 (CHF3,400) in compensation from the French state after blowing the whistle on the bank’s alleged practice of assisting tax evaders in France.
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swissinfo.ch
Whistleblower Stéphanie Gibaud had asked for €3.5 million to compensate for the emotional stress she says she was subjected to by UBS, which fired her from her job in marketing and communications at its French unit in 2012. Gibaud argued at the Paris court that she had worked for the state by providing evidence that led to the current court case against the bank.
UBS is facing a tax fraud trial in France that could see the bank fined up to €3.7 billion if found guilty of helping French citizens dodge their tax obligations. UBS denies the charges.
Gibaud refused to obey orders from the bank to destroy documents when she worked there in 2008. Instead, she passed them on to the French authorities, which have used them as evidence in their case against UBS.
On Friday, the Paris court acknowledged that Gibaud could be classified as an “occasional” state worker for her whistleblowing efforts. But it rejected claims that the stress caused was worth anything like the amount that Gibaud wanted.
In 2015, Gibaud was awarded €30,000 in compensation from the bank by a French employment tribunal. She has also written a book about her experiences called “The woman who knew too much”. UBS has rejected the contents of the book as fiction, but lost its case against Gibaud for defamation.
In a swissinfo.ch interview in 2014, Gibaud said that UBS “harassed me in order to break me” after she had turned whistleblower.
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French prosecutors demand €3.7 billion fine for UBS
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The Swiss banking giant and its French subsidiary are accused of laundering proceeds from tax fraud carried out from 2004 to 2012. UBS denies the charges. France’s national financial crimes unit estimates at least €9.76 billion went unreported to French tax authorities in that period. Prosecutors also requested a fine of €15 million against UBS…
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The Swiss bank denied any bullying of the ex-employee, Stéphanie Gibaud, and said the dispute between Gibaud and her boss was a simple misunderstanding. But the labour tribunal, which has no connection to ongoing investigations into UBS over whether it helped tax dodgers, said that the “alleged psychological bullying has been established”. It ordered the…
UBS whistleblower criticises banking’s ‘code of silence’
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Gibaud started working at UBS France when it opened there in 1999 and was head of communications until 2012, with particular responsibility for organising bank events in France. Upon learning of the alleged illegal nature of the bank’s activities in France, she was instrumental in revealing the scandal of tax evasion and fraud. Earlier this…
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.