Swiss Banks Provided US with Banks’ Employees Details

The banks of Switzerland, which are prosecuted by the US in tax evasion assisting, have forwarded the personal information of thousands of their employees to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Bloomberg agency reported that at least five of eleven Swiss banks prosecuted by the US forwarded phone conversations records and e-mails of ten thousand of their workers to the US authorities. Among those banks there are HSBC, Credit Suisse, Julius Baer and Zuercher Kantonalbank. Particularly, the Swiss branch of HSBC provided US authorities with details of 1100 employees, though just 17 of them directly contacted with American clients.

Swiss legislation does not allow to provide foreign investigators with evidences, but in April 2012 the government made some exclusions from that rule at the instance of several banks.

According to the experts, in this way the banks are trying to stop criminal prosecution by the US. Three years ago the biggest Swiss bank UBS provided the US authorities with information of almost 4700 clients and paid the fine at the amount of USD 780 mln in exchange for investigation ceasing.