Bank to open secret Swiss records in $20bn tax investigation settlement

Banking giant UBS will pay US$780m (€619.8m) and turn over once-secret Swiss bank records to settle claims that it conspired to defraud the US government of taxes owed by thousands of American clients.

Around 17,000 American clients concealed their UBS accounts from the Internal Revenue Service, the US tax-collection agency, hiding assets of about $20bn (€15.9bn) in total, US officials said.