Word: bankes
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...muscles in a heated standoff with another country. But now it finds itself pitted against the U.S. in a David and Goliath-style imbroglio that could damage diplomatic and economic relations between the two for years to come. On one side, the U.S. Department of Justice is accusing Swiss banking giant UBS of helping wealthy Americans hide billions of dollars from the tax man and insisting that the bank reveal their identities. On the other, the Swiss government is threatening to step in to protect the country's famous secrecy laws. The two have until Aug. 3 to come...
...been under investigation by the Department of Justice since last summer for allegedly helping wealthy Americans hide $20 billion in undisclosed offshore accounts to evade taxes. To absolve itself of criminal charges, the bank, one of the world's largest wealth managers, agreed to pay a $780 million penalty and release the names of 250 clients whom the Internal Revenue Service suspected of evading taxes. (See pictures of tea-party tax protests...
...that wasn't enough to end the bank's troubles. In February, the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against UBS seeking the identities of 52,000 more Americans suspected of stashing a total of $15 billion at the bank. This time, the Swiss were having none of it. Citing bank-client confidentiality guaranteed in the Swiss constitution, Switzerland's government has forbidden UBS from complying. It has also threatened to "take control of the data at UBS" to prevent the bank from handing the accounts over to the Americans...
...solution, the President is stepping up the pressure on both sides. That was Obama's message at a White House meeting on July 13 with representatives of leading Jewish-American organizations, some of whom have lately complained that the President is unfairly pressuring Israel to make concessions on West Bank settlements, while going easy on the Palestinians...
...Funding is another issue. The European Commission has promised $350 million from the E.U.'s $7 billion economic-stimulus fund to jump-start the project, and the European Investment Bank has said it is prepared to finance up to a quarter of the pipeline's cost, about $3 billion. But with other private and public sources hesitating to commit, Nabucco's future is still in doubt...