LICHTENSTEIN: Banking association believes current international tax probes will not damage Liechtenstein bank stability

Record ID: 560360

  • Title: LICHTENSTEIN: Banking association believes current international tax probes will not damage Liechtenstein bank stability
  • Date: 28th February 2008
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF LIECHTENSTEIN BANKS
  • Embargoed: 14th March 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Finance
  • Reuters ID: LVA8J3B5I5C2IJFJK3A6OTWD8JCK
  • Story Text: Head of Liechtenstein Bankers Association tells Reuters country's banking system will not be damaged by international tax probes.
    Liechtenstein Bankers Association head Michael Lauber has said that his country's banks will not be damaged by an international hunt for tax evaders, begun by Germany which brought details of secret accounts held in Liechtenstein banks.
    Speaking with Reuters in the capitol Vaduz on Wednesday (Feb 27), Lauber said: "The events of the past days certainly have had unpleasant short-term effect on the banking place (Liechtenstein). If one looks at the stock prices of listed banks one can note losses. However, this has nothing to do with whether the banks or the banking place as a whole are stable".
    Lauber said that Liechtenstein is open for dialogue with other countries to avoid being labelled as a tax haven. "If one is speaking of exchanging information with foreign countries then it is an issue of negotiating - in this concrete case with the European Union about an anti-fraud agreement," Lauber said, adding "to which extent one permits foreign institutions access to information which according to Liechtenstein laws pertain to these spheres."
    Liechtenstein said on Wednesday a man convicted after stealing data from a Liechtenstein bank was now being investigated for industrial espionage.
    Germany and Britain have said they paid an informant for data on secret accounts of citizens held by Liechtenstein banks. The United States, Australia and New Zealand have also joined the search for tax evaders.
    Liechtenstein had asked for legal assistance from the prosecutor's offices in the German cities of Bochum and Munich for information on a 42-year-old Liechtenstein citizen called Heinrich Kieber, the country's prosecutor said.

    "The investigations concern suspicion of spying out business secrets for the benefit of a foreign party," the Office of the Public Prosecutor said in a statement.
    Michael Lauber questioned the legality of using the data for the tax probes. While saying that the issue would have to be resolved largely in Germany following German law, however adding: "I can only say that following Liechtenstein law it would not be possible to use data which is stolen or which could not have been gotten by legal means in a criminal investigation."
    Kieber in 2003 was convicted of fraud after stealing data from Liechtenstein bank LGT, owned by the country's ruling family, where he worked until November 2002.
    The bank has said it is almost certain that the client data that were stolen from its trust unit in 2002 are the same as those at the source of Germany's tax probe.
    The data -- which Kieber had put on four DVDs -- were of some 1,400 client relations dating from before 2002, LGT said. Some 600 of those clients were in Germany.
    Kieber's sentence was suspended after an appeal in 2004 and he was never sent to jail, LGT said.
    Kieber's current location was unknown, LGT said. Media have speculated he has assumed a new identity after being paid millions of euros by Germany, and is living in Australia.
    International pressure on Liechtenstein to lift the cloak of secrecy from its banks is growing as tax agencies across the globe widen probes into tax evasion involving accounts in the tiny European state.
    The country of 35,000 residents nestled between Austria and Switzerland has lured thousands of wealthy investors from across the world with a promise of confidentiality, placing it on an international blacklist of taxation havens.
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