UBS Hearing Set for July 13

The offshore banking world remains rocked by the Swiss banking drama associated with UBS. Yesterday, the news came through that a federal judge in the U.S. has set a hearing date of July 13 for UBS. This would be a hearing that could force the bank to give all of the names on secret Swiss bank accounts. UBS has offered some of the names, but the U.S. government is looking for them all. Some believe that this could not only compromise a reasonable expectation of privacy, but result in prison terms. HedgeCo.Net reports on a UBS objection to such a quick hearing:

”Such violations would expose these employees to substantial prison terms, as well as fines, penalties and other sanctions,” UBS said in a court filing last week. “There is simply no reason to have, nor equity in having, such an expedited process here.”

UBS feels that such measures are especially harsh, since the Swiss banking giant has agreed to pay billions in damages.

Offshore banking crackdown

UBS isn’t the only offshore bank seeing a crackdown. In addition to UBS, offshore banking has been in the news with regard to an Antigua bank set up by Robert Allen Stanford, a financier in Texas who has been embroiled in a scandal. Antigua has been desperate to look into the matter, since the country was only taken off the United States’ offshore banking blacklist in 2001.

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