UBS has been indicted in Belgium for "serious and organized tax fraud". This was announced by the Brussels Public Prosecutor's Office a week after the announcement of the closure of an investigation in France for the same reason. “The Swiss bank is suspected of having directly attracted Belgian clients (without going through its Belgian subsidiary), in order to encourage them to build tax evasion schemes,” the Belgian prosecutor wrote in a statement.
A spokesman for UBS, responding to Agence France Presse, said that the institute "intends to continue to vigorously defend itself against any unfounded accusation".
Ubs, again according to what can be read in the public prosecutor's statement, was accused of "criminal organisation, money laundering, illegal exercise of the profession of financial intermediary in Belgium and serious organized tax fraud" by the Brussels investigating judge, Michel Claise.
On 19 June 2014, the same judge specializing in financial affairs had accused the head of the Belgian branch of UBS, Marcel Brühwiler, of Swiss nationality, precisely of money laundering and tax evasion.
In that case, the prosecution had spoken of "several billion" illegally diverted from Belgium to Switzerland, with UBS Belgium accused of having approached wealthy Belgian taxpayers over the past ten years to offer them to open undeclared bank accounts in Switzerland.
Today's announcement comes a week after the closure in France of the investigation into alleged tax fraud in which the investigating judges examined the conduct of UBS and its French subsidiary, setting a record bail for the former.
