HSBC Unit Charged by Belgian Prosecutors in Tax Fraud Probe
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) — HSBC Holdings Plc’s Swiss private banking unit was charged by Belgian prosecutors for helping wealthy clients in the country dodge hundreds of millions of euros in taxes.
The Brussels prosecutors’ office said the bank was suspected of “serious and organized” fraud, money laundering, criminal organization and acting as an illegal financial intermediary, according to an e-mailed statement today.
“More than 1,000 Belgian taxpayers could be affected over amounts involving several billions of dollars that were invested, managed and/or transferred between 2003 up to the present day,” prosecutors said in the statement.
Belgium is closing in on tax evasion by its wealthy citizens. Marcel Bruehwiler, the chief executive officer of UBS AG’s Belgium unit, was charged with fraud in June over a multibillion-euro tax fraud that helped customers open undeclared accounts in Switzerland.
Patrick Humphris, a spokesman for HSBC’s private bank in Geneva, declined to comment.
HSBC’s Swiss unit may have knowingly encouraged fraud by selling offshore companies in Panama and the Virgin Islands to certain clients to avoid European Union savings taxation rules, the prosecutors said. London-based HSBC is Europe’s largest bank by market value.
Several managers and employers will be summoned to hearings held by the investigating judge, the prosecutors said.
–With assistance from Giles Broom in Geneva and Julia Verlaine in London.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aoife White in Brussels at awhite62@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net Peter Chapman, Simone Meier
