The Swiss banking giants says that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission intends to act against it, having probed the activities of some staff in relation to unnamed equity market listings.

UBS says that the SFC is examining its sponsorship of these listings in the jurisdiction. The regulator intends to take action against the bank and some of its staff.

“In October 2016, the SFC informed UBS that it intends to commence action against UBS and certain UBS employees with respect to sponsorship work in those offerings. If such action is taken, there may be financial ramifications for UBS, including fines and restitution orders. Such action could also result in suspension of UBS’s ability to provide corporate finance advisory services in Hong Kong for a period of time,” UBS said last week. 

UBS, along with some of its peers, has faced a number of regulatory and legal cases in recent years. In its native Switzerland, for example, the Federal Supreme Court ruled in 2012 in a test case against it that distribution fees paid to a firm for distributing third-party and intra-group investment funds and structured products must be disclosed and surrendered to clients who have signed a discretionary mandate agreement with the firm in the absence of a valid waiver. As a result, UBS said that its clients might ask it to disclose and surrender 'retrocessions.'

In 2014 UBS reached a settlement with the European Commission regarding its probe of bid-ask spreads in connection with Swiss franc interest rate derivatives and paid a €12.7 million fine, which was reduced to this level based in part on UBS’s cooperation with the EC. The Monetary Authority of Singapore, Hong Monetary Authority and the Japan Financial Services Agency have also resolved investigations of UBS (and in some cases, other banks). The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission have not.