Swiss bank to appeal in Cahuzac affair
Swiss private bank Reyl has decided to appeal the decision of a Paris court to fine it €1.875 million (CHF2.03 million) for helping former French Budget Minister Jerôme Cahuzac hide undeclared funds.
The court handed down its decision to the Geneva-based bank on December 8 during the Cahuzac’s trial. The former minister has been sentenced to a three-year jail term.
The deadline for launching an appeal was Monday evening. A second trial could take place by 2018.
The information, revealed on Tuesday by the Geneva-based Le Temps newspaperExternal link, was confirmed to the AWP financial news agency.
In 2013, Cahuzac, once the rising star of the French Socialist Party, was outed by a former Reyl employee turned whistleblower, who was later arrested in Switzerland under charges of breaking banking secrecy laws.
Cahuzac initially denied the allegations but resigned after later admitting to holding €600,000 in a secret Swiss account and being caught in a “spiral of lies”.
Cahuzac’s wife and co-defendant was also sentenced to two years in prison.
Geneva-based Reyl bank was found guilty of “being an instrument for the concealment of assets” by the French court and received the maximum fine possible for money laundering.
However, the bank escaped a ban on operating on French soil as demanded by the prosecution. Besides the bank, chief executive officer François Reyl was also fined €375,000 and given a two-year suspended sentence.
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