Suchergebnisse für conformité fiscale du client

Digital Markets Act – questions choisies

A few enterprises of important size, offering core online platform services, play a major role in the digital economy and, as such, exercise significant control over market access, leading to dependencies of their users and potentially to unfair behaviors. To apprehend and help preventing abuses, the European Commission has issued a new Regulation proposal, the “Digital Markets Act ”, applying to…

Les données bancaires pseudonymisées – Du secret bancaire à la protection des données

Law strictly restricts the transfer of personal data and data protected by banking secrecy, especially outside of Switzerland. Personal data is defined as all information relating to an identified or identifiable person. Similarly, legal scholarship and case law hold that banking secrecy protects only client identifying data. The ability to identify the relevant person is thus core to both data…

Digitalisation dans le domaine bancaire et aperçu des risques juridiques

There is today a strong trend towards digitization in the banking sector in line with the constant development of new technologies. Swiss legislation authorizes online bank account opening processes and can be seen as pretty liberal in terms of reception and recording of banking documentation in electronic form. In this context, Swiss banks may be interested to evaluate the feasibility of, and…

Réflexions critiques sur l’adoption par la Suisse des normes du GAFI en ­matière de transparence des sociétés : du bricolage législatif à l’abolition des actions au porteur ?

As a result of the revised FATF recommendations issued in 2012, Switzerland, under international pressure, had no choice but to enact requirements aiming at creating more transparency with regard to the ownership and control of limited by share companies. In this context, the widespread possibility for Swiss companies to issue bearer shares was particularly at stake. Switzerland inserted these…

La banque exposée aux prétentions de tiers : art. 402 CO et rétention ­d’actifs de clients

The so-called claw-back suits filed by the liquidators of Fairfield Sentry and other feeder funds involved in Bernard Madoff’s bankruptcy have prompted the defendant banks to secure their recourse against their clients by withholding money and other assets in their custody. This article analyses the legal basis for the retention of client assets under Swiss law. It concludes that, except when the…

Protection des données et nouvelles procédures de communication aux autorités fiscales et de surveillance étrangères

At a time when banking secrecy is shrinking, the lawmaker has decided to redefine the role of data protection in international cooperation procedures with regulatory and tax authorities. The law allows a supervised entity, typically a bank, to transmit confidential information to certain foreign authorities and organizations, but requires it to safeguard the rights of its clients and other third…

Conformité fiscale : obligations et responsabilité du client envers la banque

The responsibility of Swiss banks and other financial intermediaries in respect of their clients’ and client ­assets’ tax status have undergone a paradigmatic change. Banks need to manage their tax and criminal risks ­related to their clients. FATCA, the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS), and the implementing Swiss legislation impose strict duties on banks (and ­almost none on their clients)…

Know Your Customer : Quo Vadis ?

Know your client (KYC) is now an essential due diligence requirement for all banking business. The concept only appeared relatively recently in legislation, however, in conjunction with increased efforts to combat organised crime and money laundering. For around 40 years, the scope and content of know your client has continued to expand, sometimes in stark contrast to other standards. This article…

L’extension du système de lutte contre le blanchiment d’argent aux infractions fiscales : Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing

On December 14, 2014, the Swiss Federal Parliament enacted a revision of the Swiss money laundering legislation in order to comply with the Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force, as revised in February 2012. One of the issues addressed by the Act is the definition of new predicate offences relating to direct and indirect taxes. The discussion of this issue was controversial from the…

Towards Automatic Exchange of Information

This article describes the various steps that led towards automatic exchange of information as the global standard and the issues that remain to be solved. First, the various competing models of exchange information, such as Double Tax Treaty (DTT), TIEA’s, FATCA or UE Directives are described with a view to show how they interact between themselves. Second, the so-called Rubik Strategy is…