HSBC’s private bank will pay $192m in penalties and admit to helping US customers hide more than $1bn in assets from tax authorities as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice.
The agreement, announced on Tuesday, effectively ends a multiyear investigation of the Geneva-based bank’s activities between 2000 and 2010.
“HSBC Switzerland conspired with US account holders to conceal assets abroad and evade taxes that every American must pay,” said Stuart Goldberg of the DoJ in a statement. The DoJ said that as of 2007, the private bank had $1.26bn in US client assets that had not been declared to the US tax authorities.