UBS to Release Customers' Names

Is this the end of secret Swiss banking? UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, will release information on 4,450 accounts in order to settle a U.S. lawsuit that seeks the names of suspected tax evaders. The accounts in question had, at their peak, about $18 billion in assets. UBS, which Bloomberg calls “the world’s second-biggest manager of money for the rich,” admitted in February to participating “in a scheme to defraud the U.S.” Since February, UBS has paid $780 million to the U.S. and four of its clients have plead guilty to failing to report their offshore bank accounts.