ZURICH (Reuters) – UBS has filed an appeal with France’s Supreme Court against last week’s decision by a Paris court that upheld the Swiss bank’s conviction for money laundering, while slashing its penalty for allegedly helping wealthy clients evade taxes.
“This enables UBS AG to thoroughly assess the verdict of the Court of Appeal and to determine next steps in the best interest of its stakeholders,” Switzerland’s biggest bank said in a statement on Monday.
The Paris appeals court reduced UBS’s penalty to 1.8 billion euros ($2.03 billion), less than half of an overall fine of 4.5 billion euros imposed against the bank after a first trial in 2019.
UBS, however, had hoped to see the charges thrown out by the appeals court, particularly the money-laundering allegation, because of the potential reputational damage to the world’s biggest wealth manager.
($1 = 0.8857 euros)
(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Mark Potter and Alexander Smith)
