Jordan News

Prof. Nofan Al-Ajarmeh wrote:

Swiss banking secrecy began as a means to protect wealthy European banking interests. In 1934, Switzerland passed the Federal Law on Banking and Savings, which approved the secrecy of accounts in order to protect the assets of people who were persecuted by the Nazi authorities at the time. This law made disclosing account holder information to a third party a criminal offense that amounts to Her sentence is 3 years in prison, and this has led to the prosperity of the Swiss banking system, as the Swiss Bankers Association estimated in 2018 that Swiss banks own assets worth 5.6 trillion US dollars, or 25% of all assets in the world?? Despite attempts to bypass Egyptian secrecy by amending relevant legislation, the Swiss parliament refused to abolish banking secrecy, and the people voted in a general referendum on that as well.

As a result and based on several international pressures, in 2017, Switzerland joined a group of countries (38 countries) by adopting the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) system, which is the global standard applied by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to combat tax evasion. Under this standard, banks automatically send information Foreign customer to their national tax authorities, with data on foreign residents, this standard aims to prevent wealthy foreigners from hiding unauthorized funds in Switzerland and to ensure that they comply with tax laws around the world. The system of secret accounts is not restricted to the Swiss banking system. There are eight countries that have banking secrecy laws, including Switzerland, including: Liechtenstein, Denmark, Austria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Panama and Uruguay. Each country has different levels of protection and client confidentiality. But all of them enjoy great protection of assets and privacy, when combined with the appropriate legal tools.

But Switzerland remains the most important country for several reasons, including: the economic and political stability in Switzerland, as it is a neutral country far from conflicts, and its low taxes. The (foreign) bank account holder is not subject to income tax as long as the income is not from a Swiss company or shares, in addition to their adoption of the numbered accounts system By assigning a number to the account holder instead of the name, with the bank not revealing these accounts to the public, or even to most of the bank’s employees, and if the account is opened in the name of an external company, the identity of the company’s account holder is not disclosed.

The question that arises here is: A country with such ancient banking and huge banking capacity that has more than 400 banks, is it easy to penetrate these accounts, as happened recently with Credit Suisse, which is the second largest bank in Switzerland?? Does the Swiss banking system not realize the seriousness of this matter? Is the Swiss banking system not afraid of losing a competitive advantage over its competitors?? Two days ago, the data leak of more than 18,000 bank accounts, revealed by an investigation involving more than 40 media outlets, revealed dozens of accounts in Credit Suisse allegedly owned by officials who acquired them illegally, and Credit Suisse immediately announced its complete rejection of these allegations. On Sunday, February 20, 2022, Credit Suisse issued a statement saying that it “strongly rejects the allegations and insinuations about the alleged business practices of the bank,” and added that “the matters presented mostly belong to the past, and in some cases date back to the forties of the last century, and reports regarding These matters may result in partial, inaccurate or selective information taken out of context, resulting in biased interpretations of the Bank’s business behaviour.”

The bank added that nearly 90% of the accounts reviewed (by the publishers of the report – Al-Tahrir) were closed today or were in the process of closing before receiving press inquiries. He also said that he takes the alleged leak in reporting seriously, and stresses that he has strong data protection systems in place…)). Several websites reported that the data was leaked more than a year ago to the German newspaper (Süddeutsche Zeitung) by a person who describes himself as a whistleblower regarding accounts belonging to 37,000 people with a total value of more than one hundred billion dollars,” as stated in the website https://www.swissinfo. .ch/ara In this context, the following becomes clear:

1. If the data was leaked a year ago, it is assumed that the bank was aware of this, and it is the duty of the bank to inform the account holders of this matter, or at least conduct an internal investigation to find out the truth of this matter, and it appears that it did not do so, and this places the bank within the framework of legal responsibility as it breached at least its contractual obligations.

2. If we assume that the bank’s information was hacked, wouldn’t it be revealed at the time? Isn’t an official investigation launched by the state, and we are talking about the second largest bank in Switzerland and not a supermarket?? Other than that, usually bank pirates seek to rob money and not information?? Who risks criminal penalties just to get information?? Adding – if he is an employee of the bank – to the prohibition from practicing the profession towards the implicated bankers or the withdrawal of the banking license from the implicated institutions??

3. Whoever hacks or (hacks) information usually gets a large amount of information randomly: The question is, are there no bank accounts in the Arab region except for those mentioned in the report only (most of them are out of service or may God pass them away)??

4. The bank has defended itself and confirmed the legality of these funds and that it accepted them legally, and therefore these funds are not obtained from violations or crimes, because the bank has a duty to ensure that the funds it deals with have a legitimate source, and this is the duty of the compliance departments in banks, especially The acceptance or non-acceptance of the customer is up to the bank.

5. I do not know how the publishers of the report – Al-Tahrir concluded that these funds came from an illegal source, and what tools were used to reach this conclusion? Is the mere opening of a bank account by any foreign official a presumption of the illegality of the money?

Finally, some may ask what is the interest of the bank in this?? In the face of an expected loss as a result of this leak, the bank is faced with two possibilities: The first: that it was actually exposed to hacking or leakage of information from inside the bank by its employees without its knowledge, and this does not release the bank’s responsibility to its customers as a result of this negligence and negligence. With his approval, and in this case, there must be a huge financial authority behind this matter, and it is ready to compensate the bank for any loss in this regard.

In conclusion, we are facing a legal case for which the bank itself bears the responsibility, and in my estimation, the owners of these accounts have a legal basis to sue the bank or any of its employees responsible for the leak.