ZURICH (Reuters) - Clients of UBS facing disclosure of their accounts to U.S. tax authorities were not harmless victims and legal cases against former UBS bankers did not affect the bank, its chairman told Swiss Sunday newspapers.
"The clients are not just harmless victims. They knew what they wanted to evade," Kaspar Villiger, chairman of the world's second-largest wealth manager, said in an interview with SonntagsBlick.
"But they trusted the bank that it would work. Now we have to correct that," said Villiger, adding it was still not the responsibility of UBS to make sure clients paid their taxes.
Villiger did not believe systematic tax evasion had been a problem in countries other than the United States, he said in a separate interview with NZZ am Sonntag, adding that legal action against former U.S. bankers did not affect the bank.
Under Swiss law, tax fraud is a criminal offence, while tax evasion is punishable only with a fine.
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