The theft, allegedly carried out by one of Julius Baer’s Zurich staffers, is said to be its third in ten years, and indicates the difficulty Swiss institutions may have in continuing to maintain their industry’s prized secrecy, as long as external entities keen to track down undeclared assets continue to fuel a lucrative black market in Swiss banking data.
Under Switzerland’s controversial bank secrecy laws, bank employees who steal and sell information about their bank’s clients face a possible jail term. A number of countries, including Germany but also the US and UK, have sought to force Swiss banks to become more open about those of their own citizens who use Swiss institutions to avoid paying tax.
News of the theft was revealed on Sunday in the SonntagsZeitung, the Zurich newspaper, which quoted the bank’s chief executive, Boris Collardi. The article said the bank employee in question had acted alone, and that, due to the bank’s strict internal controls, had been discovered and arrested.
Last year, Julius Baer agreed to pay the German tax authorities €50m as part of a deal aimed at ending a dispute over whether it has enabled German taxpayers to evade their tax obligations.
As reported, Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced earlier this month that it would sell its international wealth management business to Julius Baer for an estimated 1.2% of client assets.
The deal involves BoAML businesses based outside of the US, and does not include Bank of America’s Japanese joint venture, Mitsubishi UFJ Merrill Lynch PB Securities, or its US-based international wealth management offices.
In the interview with the SonntagsZeitung, Collardi said Julius Baer was putting further acquisition plans on hold, and revealed it was planning to cut several hundred jobs, including in Switzerland.
