Swiss parliament ratifies UBS agreement with USA

The Swiss parliament has this morning formally a deal with Washington settling US tax evasion litigation against Swiss banking giant UBS, foreseeing the transfer of secret client data.

Last Tuesday, the Swiss parliament's two chambers had accepted ‘in principle’ the agreement reached between the government and the United States in August 2009.

However, the lower house gave its backing on condition that the deal be put to voters in a referendum, which the upper house rejected a day earlier.

The two houses overcame their differences today with the idea of a referendum being dropped.

Switzerland, the United States and UBS agreed in August 2009 that the bank would identify 4,450 US clients suspected of tax evasion in an attempt to settle lawsuits by US authorities.