A Spanish court has refused to extradite a former HSBC bank employee to Switzerland where he is wanted for allegedly stealing data on tens of thousands of bank accounts that exposed suspected tax evaders.
Herve Falciani, who has Italian and French citizenship, face charges including unauthorized obtaining of data, breach of trade secrecy, industrial espionage and violation of banking secrecy.
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But Spanish court denied the request on the grounds that violating banking secrecy laws is not punishable as a criminal offence in Spain.
The court was also of the opinion that Falciani cannot be accused of revealing industrial secrets since the information he disclosed was given to the "competent authorities" and it was "related to illegal acts carried out through this bank which cannot be penally protected".
Falciani is accused of stealing data on at least 24,000 customers of HSBC’s Swiss subsidiaries from 2006 to 2008, while he worked in the bank’s information technology development unit in Geneva, which he then passed on to French authorities.
He fled to France in 2009 after HSBC discovered the data leak and put him under investigation.
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By GlobalData
