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US eyes HSBC offshore accounts
The US government has launched a criminal investigation into whether HSBC’s clients are dodging tax by putting their funds in undeclared deposit accounts in Singapore and India, following the successful prosecution of UBS in Switzerland last year. On 21 June, Kevin Downing, a senior litigator at the US Justice Department, wrote to HSBC clients informing them they were the focus of an official probe. Quantities of money and numbers of accounts are not known. Precedent is on American authorities’ side, after UBS paid a fine of $780m (£515m) and handed over details of 250 client accounts.