Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced that Credit Suisse AG pleaded guilty to having assisted U.S. taxpayers in evading the payment of U.S. taxes and agreed to pay a penalty of $2.6 billion. Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole described this announcement as “an historic guilty plea” and “the largest monetary penalty of any criminal tax case ever.”

Attorney General Eric Holder described the conduct of Credit Suisse as follows:

The bank actively helped its account holders to deceive the IRS by concealing assets and income in illegal, undeclared bank accounts.   These secret offshore accounts were held in the names of sham entities and foundations.   This conspiracy spanned decades. In the case of at least one wholly-owned subsidiary, the practice of using sham entities to conceal funds began more than a century ago.   Credit Suisse not only knew about this illegal, cross-border banking activity; they willfully aided and abetted it.  Hundreds of Credit Suisse employees, including at the manager level, conspired to help tax cheats dodge U.S. taxes.

 In the course of these activities, Credit Suisse deceived the IRS, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of Justice.   The bank went to elaborate lengths to shield itself, its employees, and the tax cheats it served from accountability for their criminal actions.   They subverted disclosure requirements, destroyed bank records, and concealed transactions involving undeclared accounts by limiting withdrawal amounts and using offshore credit and debit cards to repatriate funds.   They failed to take even the most basic steps to ensure compliance with tax laws.   And when the bank finally began to feel pressure to correct illegal practices and comply with the law – as a result of the Justice Department’s investigation, of which they were notified in 2010 – Credit Suisse failed to retain key documents, allowed evidence to be lost or destroyed, and conducted a shamefully inadequate internal inquiry.

The Statement of Facts can be found here; the plea agreement can be found here. Credit Suisse must now disclose all evidence and information about its U.S. accounts that is required by the Program for Non-Prosecution Agreements of Non-Target Letters for Swiss Banks (“Swiss Bank Program”). This includes, among other things, information on how its cross-border business operated; how Credit Suisse attracted and serviced its account holders; and the total number of accounts held by U.S. persons with the maximum dollar value. Credit Suisse must also supply the number of U.S. persons affiliated with each account, identify whether each account was held by an individual or entity, disclose the name of any financial advisor, attorney or other representative associated with the account, and reveal detailed information about what funds were transferred into and out of the account. The DOJ may then make treaty requests to Switzerland for actual account records that would reveal the names of those U.S. account holders. Unlike the situation with UBS where UBS agreed to pay $780 million and turned over the names of approximately 4,000 U.S. account holders after being specifically authorized to do so by the Swiss government, Switzerland has not enacted legislation that would specifically permit Credit Suisse to turn over U.S. account holder names to the DOJ without violating Swiss banking secrecy laws.

Regarding the Swiss Bank Program, Kathryn Keneally, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Tax Division, spoke at an American Bar Association Section of Taxation meeting last week and stated that Swiss banks that are participating in the program are making disclosures to the DOJ about accounts held by individual U.S. taxpayers. She urged anyone who has not yet come clean to make a disclosure through the U.S. Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI) but noted that it may be too late for some people who have already been identified as a result of the information provided via the program. She also noted that some Swiss banks in the program are offering to pay part of the penalty on behalf of its account holders who apply and are accepted to the OVDI. She also mentioned that the DOJ has expanded its efforts beyond Switzerland, with activities in Israel, India, and in the Caribbean.