The Department of Justice announced today that Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (Suisse) SA (BIL Switzerland) and Zuger Kantonalbank (ZGKB) have reached resolutions under the department’s Swiss Bank Program. These banks will collectively pay penalties totaling more than $13 million and continue to cooperate with the department.
“The agreements reached today reflect the department’s continued commitment to reaching resolutions with those Swiss banks that satisfy the requirements of the Program, including detailed disclosures of their illegal conduct in connection with U.S.-related accounts,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “Taxpayers are on notice that attempting to hide their foreign accounts in insurance wrappers and other such vehicles in order to evade their U.S. tax obligations is criminal conduct, and we are vigorously pursuing these cases.”
According to the terms of the non-prosecution agreements signed today, each bank agrees to cooperate in any related criminal or civil proceedings, demonstrate its implementation of controls to stop misconduct involving undeclared U.S. accounts and pay penalties in return for the department’s agreement not to prosecute these banks for tax-related criminal offenses.
