Our core business is litigation with Swiss banks. We have represented many international private clients before banks, mainly Swiss banks. We know how to defreeze and unblock Swiss bank accounts in reasonable time because we did it in many previous cases. Many clients are happy to have access again to their funds. In many cases litigation is considered to be the last resort, the process of litigation often leads to a settlement before trial. But almost all our cases against Swiss banks were settled out of court.

1. Case example of Swiss bank litigation:

A Russian client involved in international business has Swiss bank accounts trough some offshore companies managed in Switzerland. Some important documents are in Russian language. Nobody knowing the banking business in this bank can understand Russian language and Russian agreements. It comes out that the compliance officer was not capable to understand the economic background of a big transaction just because he had no translation of the most important documents and agreements. According to Swiss anti-money laundering laws and regulations the economic background of a transaction has to be evidenced by documents enabling a neutral third party to understand the architecture of the transaction. The documents must be collected by the Swiss bank before the transaction can take place. The compliance officer simply blocked the account because he was not sure to have fully understood the economic background of the transaction. Our Swiss law firm called the bank and spoke directly with the compliance officer. Together with the client we made a chart evidencing the flow of funds. The most important agreements were translated in English. Together with the client we made a meeting with the relationship manager and the compliance officer of the bank and we explained again the architecture of the transaction and the account was immediately released and the transaction was executed. No bank litigation has taken place. In this case it was the compliance officer freezing the Swiss bank account and not the federal prosecutor. Such cases are very frequent and can be solved in short time.

 

2. Case example of Swiss bank litigation:

A big fiduciary firm managed hundreds of offshore companies. One of the companies was a BVI company managed for a successful business man. He came to me and he said that his account (he means the account of his offshore company) has been frozen by the Swiss bank and he does not know the reason. The relationship manager of the big fiduciary firm was not available on the phone. When he contacted the bank nobody was around. He went to the bank and his private banker gave him the advice to appoint a banking lawyer. Nobody gave him a satisfactory response. After he learned that the relationship manager of the trust company was arrested. He was shocked that from one day to the other all his assets in Switzerland were blocked without any reason. We were convinced that this business man was fully innocent. He had nothing to hide. Subsequently, we contacted the Swiss bank and we learned that many accounts were blocked by the federal prosecutor in Bern in view of a huge criminal investigation directed against many people and one of the representatives of the big fiduciary firm. We did not started a bank litigation. The Swiss federal prosecutor has frozen hundreds of Swiss bank accounts. In such international criminal case it can takes years before accounts are defreezed again. Normally, accounts are defreezed under the condition that the criminal investigation has finished. What we did? After some calls with the bank and the authorities we identified the chief investigator. We offered to cooperate because our client had nothing to hide. The Federal Prosecutor was interested in background information on the representative of the fiduciary firm and on a direct face-to-face meeting with my client. I convinced my client to come to Switzerland and to participate in the meeting with the Federal Prosecutor. We cooperated and helped the Prosecutor to execute his job and the Prosecutor helped us and released the funds without litigation. After 4 month the assets are in the control of my client again. Due to the huge amount collected with one sole account we advised to split distribute the assets in different banks and jurisdictions in order to have a professional diversification of risks. It's not advisable to concentrate all the assets in one sole account. It's a cluster risk. The client is satisfied to have a new structure and to have diversified his wealth.

 

If you have a question about your Swiss bank account or if you want to initiate a litigation against a Swiss bank, do not hesitate to contact our senior partner Enzo Caputo, Attorney at Law. We are confident to be in a position to offer to you the support you are looking for. Thank you for the trust and confidence.

International
Legal & Tax Services

Talstrasse 20
Am Paradeplatz
8001 Zurich
Switzerland

P: +41 44 212 44 04
F: +41 44 212 44 05
enzo.caputo(at)swiss-banking-law.com

enzo.caputo
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Zurich
Baar / Zug
Milan

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