UBS wins in fight over French bid for client data

Bloomberg

UBS Group AG doesn’t have to hand over client details to French tax authorities after a Swiss court handed the country’s largest bank a clear victory in a long-running saga over banking secrecy.
The Swiss Federal Administrative Court said that French officials didn’t provide evidence that “the taxpayers involved have failed to comply with their tax obligations.”
“Simply having an account in Switzerland is not sufficient,” the Swiss court concluded. “The explanations delivered by the French authorities were insufficient.”
UBS has been fighting efforts by French tax authorities to force it to turn over customer data for years as Swiss banking secrecy rules have been under siege from US and European tax authorities. The request from France is based on information it received from German authorities, who seized data as part of their own tax probe.
French tax authorities couldn’t immediately be reached to comment.
“The decision confirms our initial view that the request for administrative assistance is inadmissible,” UBS said in an emailed comment.