Swiss Supreme Court rules in favour of Dutch information request

13 September 2016, the Swiss Supreme Court ruled that a request from the Netherlands for information on Dutch account holders at Swiss banks was valid, overturning the decision of a lower court to refuse the order.

Last November, the Dutch tax authority requested information about Dutch nationals who had more than €1,500 in their accounts and had not provided the bank with evidence of tax compliance. The Swiss Federal Tax Administration agreed to comply on the basis of the 2010 double tax treaty Protocol between the two countries, but a Dutch client of UBS challenged its decision.

The Protocol was supplemented by an interpreting Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2011 that allowed for requests to be made without stating the name of a person concerned, provided the requesting state identified the “person under examination or investigation in another manner than by stating its name and address”.

In March, the Swiss Federal Administrative Court found for the Dutch client, ruling that the request was not permitted under the protocol because it only indicated certain criteria that would identify targeted UBS clients and did not name specific account holders. It found there was no scope for the MoU to broaden the clearly stated requirements. The Dutch tax authority appealed.

The Federal Supreme Court ruled that the Dutch request was valid. In its summary it explicitly referred to the MoU, stating that the Protocol must be construed so as to allow for information exchange requests without naming a person under investigation, provided always the request in question did not amount to a fishing expedition.

The French tax authorities have asked Switzerland to hand over client information for some 45,000 bank accounts. UBS said in July that the Swiss authorities had asked it to provide client information following a French request for international administrative assistance in May.

The demand relates to former and current clients living in France, based on data from 2006 to 2008. According to a report in Le Parisien, the French authorities have already identified 4,782 accounts and are seeking to find the owners of an additional 40,379 accounts. The assets of those listed totalled more than US$11 billion.