Germans in Swiss ‘cum-ex’ trial given suspended sentences
Lawyer and two former employees of Basel bank were on trial for exposing a tax-stripping scheme
Zurich — Three Germans on trial in Switzerland for helping expose a tax-stripping scheme that cost European governments billions of euros are likely to avoid prison after a verdict on Thursday that fell well short of prosecutors’ demands. The men, Stuttgart-based lawyer Eckart Seith and two former employees of Basel-based Bank J Safra Sarasin, had faced up to three and a half years in prison for numerous charges. Instead, they got suspended fines and jail terms for violating banking secrecy. “The Zurich district court condemns three persons, accused of transferring a bank customer list to a German lawyer, for multiple violations of the banking law,” the court said, adding one banker was also found guilty of industrial espionage and coercion. The defendants were acquitted of all other charges, the court said. Seith told German newspaper FAZ he would lodge an appeal. The case, in which prosecutors said the accused passed secret Swiss bank documents to German authorities, is linked t...
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