French Appeals Court Cuts UBS Group's Fine To About $1.8 Bln

(RTTNews) - A French appeals court on Monday slashed Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG's (UBS) penalty to $1.8 billion for allegedly helping its wealthy clients to evade taxes.

The appeals court reduced the penalty from the initial $5 billion fine, but upheld the verdict that the bank was guilty of both promoting illegal banking services and money laundering.

The court ruled that UBS must still pay 800 million euros in damages and interest, and ordered the confiscation of 1 billion euros.

The prosecutor Muriel Fusina had argued that UBS was "gathering large amounts (of money) by offering efficient wealth management, but also concealing that wealth, or part of it, from the French taxman" between 2004 and 2012.

However, the bank was hoping that the appeals court would drop those charges, especially the money laundering allegation as it hurts the company's brand. The bank, which has five days to appeal against the ruling with France's Supreme Court, said it would decide quickly whether to do so.

"The bank takes note of this decision," Herve Temime, a lawyer representing UBS said after the verdict. "Compared to the first instance ruling, there is a financial gain of 2.7 billion euros, but it is a criminal conviction and therefore we will make our decision very quickly."