Paris court confirms tax fraud charges against HSBC

The Paris appeals court on Monday confirmed charges against British banking giant HSBC Holdings PLC as part of a tax fraud probe involving its Swiss unit, sources close to the case told AFP.

The court rejected an appeal by HSBC that charges first brought in April for facilitating tax fraud and illegal practices be dropped.

Investigating magistrates accuse HSBC of failing in its supervisory role over its Geneva-based unit HSBC Private Bank which is suspected of having set up tax fraud schemes for its customers, mostly French.

"We are disappointed by the outcome of the appeals procedure," HSBC said in a statement.

"We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously."

HSBC Private Banking is suspected of offering its customers several ways of hiding assets from the French taxman, notably via the use of offshore tax havens.

The case began when French authorities in late 2008 received files stolen by Hervé Falciani, a former HSBC employee in Geneva whose disclosures uncorked the so-called "Swissleaks" scandal on bank-supported tax evasion. €

He was sentenced in absentia in November in Switzerland to five years in prison.

The 43-year-old French-Italian national — dubbed by some media as "The Edward Snowden of banking" — leaked a cache of documents allegedly indicating the bank's Swiss private banking arm helped more than 120,000 clients hide €180.6 billion ($205.4 billion) from tax authorities from November 2006 to March 2007.

The leaked files led to investigations by tax authorities in several European countries, including Spain and Belgium besides France.

French judges have conducted other investigations into tax fraud, including into UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, which was fined a record €1.1 billion in 2014.