Swiss bank Leodan Privatbank has reached a resolution with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) over the tax evasion cases under the department’s Swiss bank programme.
The bank has agreed to pay a penalty of $500,000 to the US to avoid prosecution over allegations that it helped US citizens avoid paying taxes.
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Under the terms of the non-prosecution deal, Leodan agreed to cooperate in any related criminal or civil proceedings, demonstrate its implementation of controls to prevent misconduct involving undeclared US accounts and pay penalties.
The private bank said that its shareholders agreed on 11 January to shut down business.
The US DoJ in a statement said that Leodan, formerly known as PHZ Privat- und Handelsbank Zürich, held a total of 44 US related undeclared and undeclared accounts with approximately $59.42m in assets under management.
The bank offered a variety of traditional Swiss banking services including hold mail service, numbered accounts and code named accounts that assisted US taxpayers in hiding assets and income from the IRS.
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By GlobalDataLeodan had also operated a US cross-border banking business until 2013 that helped US clients in opening and maintaining undeclared accounts in Switzerland.
The department added that the bank had opened and maintained undeclared accounts in the names of sham structures, which comprised of non-US domiciled entities, such as an offshore corporation or trust, which aided the clients’ ability to hide their undeclared accounts from the IRS.
Leodan had also opened 19 US related accounts for 13 clients of external asset manager (EAM).
