Bank data transfer blocked for stolen Falciani files

Switzerland may not give the stolen banking details of a married couple to French tax evasion investigators, a court has ruled. Their data was among a large number of HSBC files illegally leaked to France by whistleblower Hervé Falciani in 2008. Acting on the information, France had asked Switzerland to provide further details on accounts at the Swiss HSBC branch, under the terms of a bilateral treaty. The unnamed couple challenged the handover, winning a Swiss court case in 2015. On Wednesday, the Federal Supreme Court confirmed this ruling, saying that administrative assistance from the Swiss authorities could not be granted if the data was obtained by breaking Swiss laws. In a separate ruling last month, the Supreme Court made a legal distinction between data that had been stolen in Switzerland or abroad. It said that stolen UBS data could be passed to France because the theft had taken place in that country – thus not specifically breaking Swiss laws. The ...

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