(Washington) The Swiss bank Credit Suisse, whose takeover by its competitor and compatriot UBS is in progress, has provided assistance to “the richest Americans” in tax evasion, according to a report from the United States Senate published on Wednesday .
According to this document, published by the Senate Finance Committee, Credit Suisse allowed to hide foreign accounts totaling more than 100 million US dollars.
This report is the conclusion of two years of investigation carried out to ensure that the Swiss bank had indeed changed its practices in this area, after agreeing in 2014 to pay a fine of 2.6 billion dollars to put an end to prosecutions, a record at the time, facing the same charges.
The commission says the bank failed to meet the terms of a 2014 agreement with the US Department of Justice to end lawsuits filed over its failure to report $100 million in assets to the tax authorities American.
During the investigation, Credit Suisse also acknowledged that 23 other accounts, endowed with at least $20 million and belonging to American citizens, had been identified, with internal investigations still ongoing.
In total, the commission estimates that the total amount recognized by the bank as being in violation of the terms of the 2014 agreement is more than $700 million.
“At the center of this investigation are greedy Swiss bankers and regulators who have failed to do their job, and the result looks like a massive and still ongoing conspiracy to allow very wealthy American citizens to failing to pay their taxes and ripping off their fellow citizens,” charged the commission’s chairman, Senator Ron Wyden.
The commission accuses Credit Suisse of not having respected the terms of the agreement and of having participated in “potentially the biggest violation of the rules in the matter in the history of the United States”. In addition, the commission believes that the senior management of the bank knew about it.
She also believes that other Swiss banks could be involved, citing in particular UBS and PKB Privatbank, as well as the Israeli bank Leumi.
Destabilized by the beginning of the banking panic which affected American regional banks, Credit Suisse was saved thanks to the organization of its takeover by the Swiss authorities, in order to avoid the collapse of a bank considered to be systemic in Europe.