As an unwelcome footnote to the US Swiss Bank Programme, the US Department of Justice has signed an addendum to a non-prosecution agreement with Union Bancaire Privée, punishing it for telling it four years ago that it only had 2,919 US-related accounts.

UBP, a private bank headquartered in Geneva, signed its original non-prosecution agreement with the Americans on 6 January 2016. The accounts that it told the DoJ about contained assets under management of approximately US$4.9 billion. At the time UBP paid a penalty of $187.7 million for helping HNW Americans evade or avoid paying their taxes. The bank has now admitted that it should have mentioned more accounts than it did at the time.

Banks that 'participated in' (i.e. capitulated to) the Swiss Bank Programme were obliged to identify all accounts in which US taxpayers held an interest, directly or indirectly, between 1 August 2008 and 31 December 2014, the better to offset potential criminal liability in the United States relating to offshore banking services. UBP had to make a complete disclosure of its cross-border activities, provide detailed information on an account-by-account basis, answer requests for information about accounts and provide detailed information about the transfer of funds into and out of US-related accounts, including undeclared accounts.

The DoJ signed non-prosecution agreements with 80 banks between March 2015 and January 2016, imposing a total of more than US$1.36 billion in penalties. Today’s agreement has obliged UBP to pay an additional sum of $14 million and provide information about the 97 accounts that it hid.