The Swiss bank UBS, fined in France with 3,700 million euros for tax fraud

The Swiss bank UBS, fined in France with 3,700 million euros for tax fraud

He is sanctioned for helping his clients hide billions from the country's tax authorities

  The French justice has condemned on Wednesday the Swiss bank UBS to a fine of 3,700 million euros, a record sum in France, in a case of tax fraud. The group was sanctioned for helping its French clients hide billions of euros from the country's tax authorities. The bank's lawyers announced that they would appeal the judgment.

The trial began late last year after seven investigations that began when a former employee alleged alleged illegalities. The start of the investigation coincided with an offensive by the European authorities against tax evasion and certain banking practices after the global financial crisis of 2008.

 The pressure led Switzerland to give up its banking secrecy and join the more than 90 countries that agreed to automatically share their bank details with each other. In the case of UBS, the French authorities determined that the bank had hidden more than 10 billion euros from treasury control between 2004 and 2012.

The French financial prosecutor said that the bank and its directors "were perfectly aware that they were breaking the French law" looking for customers and helping them evade taxes.

The subsidiary of UBS in France was fined 15 million euros on its part for complicity in the facts. The court also attributed to the French State, one of the plaintiffs, a sum of 800,000 euros in damages.