Bordier & Cie Switzerland, Verwaltungs and PostFinance have signed non-prosecution agreements with the US Department of Justice over undeclared accounts.

They bring the total number of settlements of this kind to 67. According to DoJ policy, each bank agrees to co-operate in any future related criminal or civil proceedings and promises to show the DoJ at some future point that it has evolved control-systems to help it stop itself from committing future misconduct. It also has to pay a penalty in return for no prosecution.

Bordier, which was founded in 1844 in Geneva, was aware that some of its US clients were using their accounts at the bank to evade taxes and reporting requirements, the DoJ said. In a few cases, the private bank actively helped such US accountholders to do so. For example, Bordier made repeated transfers of undeclared assets under $10,000 to the Montreal bank account of a US taxpayer-client in Canada help that client avoid US tax and reporting obligations and to keep the undeclared assets hidden.

Since 2008, Bordier held 292 US-related accounts with a total of $440.8 million in assets under management. The bank will pay a penalty of $7.827 million.

PBZ was a Zurich-based private bank that ceased its banking activities and had its license revoked last year. As early as 2008, PBZ knew that some of its US-related accounts held untaxed funds, which were described within the bank in one instance as “schwarzgeld” or “black money”. It opened, maintained and serviced accounts for US persons that it knew (or, in some cases, had reason to know) had probably not declared their assets to the Internal Revenue Service or the US Department of the Treasury.

Between 2008 and 2014, if not for longer in the past, PBZ held 171 US-related accounts collectively worth more than $101 million. It will pay a $5.57 million penalty.

Lastly, Bern-headquartered PostFinance opened and maintained undeclared accounts belonging to clients who were not meeting their US tax obligations. Since August 2008, the bank, which has never offered private banking or wealth management services and is only mentioned here for the sake of completeness, maintained 2,731 US-related accounts with a value of around $290 million. PostFinance will pay a $2 million penalty.