Union Bancaire Privée settles with US authorities

Union Bancaire Privée was the bank used by the man who inspired the film "The Wolf of Wall Street" swissinfo.ch

The Geneva-based Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) bank is the latest to be fined by the United States for offences related to tax evasion. UBP will pay $187.7 million (CHF189 million) as part of its settlement with Washington. 

UBP is considered to be in “category two” of the US programme for fining Swiss banks who aided Americans in evading taxes. So far, UBP’s fine is the second-highest issued to a category two bank, trumped only by the Ticino-based bank BSI, which paid $211 million last year. 

Between 2008 and 2013, UBP held 2,919 accounts with ties to the US, containing both declared and undeclared assets totaling up to $4.9 billion. Some of those accounts had been acquired from other banks.

The bank communicatedExternal link on Wednesday that the fine will be paid by a portion of 2015 profits that had already been set aside for that purpose.   

In the first half of 2015, UBP generated a net profit of CHF79.5 million, down 3% on annual basis.

The Geneva-based UBP, one of Switzerland’s leading asset management banks, employs some 1,300 people worldwide and had CHF93.1 billion in assets under management as of June 2015. In March, it acquired the Swiss activities of Coutts International, a division of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

UBP is the 77^th “category two” bank to have settled its case with US authorities.