Ubs, Swiss Banks | featured news

UBS AG Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel sent a memorandum to the bank's top executives on Thursday saying the bank could not comply with a U.S. government request to disclose the identity of 52,000 secret account holders, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.

The government said it would seize the bank’s client data, which U.S. authorities have demanded to settle a tax case.

Swiss bank UBS AG "systematically and deliberately" violated U.S. law by dispatching private bankers to recruit wealthy Americans interested in evading taxes and must be forced to reveal the identities of 52,000 of those clients, the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday.

Banking giant UBS has agreed to pay $780 million and turn over once-secret Swiss banking records to settle allegations it conspired to defraud the U.S. government of taxes owed by thousands of American clients.