A United States court has rejected a complaint by property billionaire Igor Olenicoff that Swiss bank UBS was responsible for his failure to declare off-shore accounts.
This content was published on
1 minute
swissinfo.ch and agencies
The Russian-American tycoon sued UBS in 2008, accusing the bank of fraud, conspiracy and other charges relating to the handling of some $200 million ($183 million) he kept in offshore accounts.
Olenicoff claimed that UBS had wrongfully advised him that he did not have to report the accounts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The district court judge in Santa Ana, California ruled that because Olenicoff already had pleaded guilty to tax evasion, it was “directly inconsistent for him now to claim that he unwittingly relied on UBS’s counsel”.
Olenicoff pleaded guilty in 2007 to filing a false tax return, admitting he didn’t tell the IRS about his offshore accounts for seven years. He was ordered to pay $52 million in back taxes, fines and penalties.
The IRS was tipped off about Olenicoff by his former UBS advisor-turned-whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld, who has been behind bars since January 2010, serving a 40-month sentence for his part in UBS activities.
UBS avoided prosecution in 2009 by handing over 4,450 client names and paying $780 million in fines relating to its US business after admitting “improper activities” carried out by some of its employees.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
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.
Read more
More
UBS threatens legal action over book claims
This content was published on
UBS has reacted by threatening legal action against the book’s author, French journalist Antoine Peillon, who claims to have gathered evidence from several former UBS employees. “Ces 600 milliards qui manquent à la France” (The 600 billion missing from France) claims that UBS trained its staff to target prominent and wealthy French clients and help…
This content was published on
Only 100 cases have been upheld – or partially upheld – with 4,100 out of the 4,450 data transfer requests already honoured by Switzerland. An important test case in the US courts has also failed to give UBS clients legal protection. In August 2009, the Swiss government concluded a treaty with the US to sidestep…
This content was published on
The latest moves by Germany, France, the United States, the G20 group of powerful nations and the European Union demonstrate that the renegotiation of tax treaties will not make the issue go away. Swiss banks have vowed to end their practice of providing safe haven to undeclared assets while the government has signed dozens of…
This content was published on
The criminal indictment of Wegelin on Friday and whispers that some banks favour unilateral negotiations with the United States has undermined the coordinated defence of banking secrecy. UBS – the bank that set off the relentless US attack – and two other heavyweights under suspicion, Credit Suisse and Julius Bär, will hope to soothe jittery…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
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.