From The TimesJuly 2, 2008

US demands names of UBS customers

Christine Seib and Tom Bawden
The US Government moved a step closer yesterday to ripping off the veil of secrecy that for centuries has protected the identity of UBS clients as a federal court took the unprecedented step of demanding that the Swiss bank hand over the names of as many as 20,000 of its customers.

A federal judge in Miami issued an order authorising the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to retrieve from UBS information about US taxpayers who may be using Swiss accounts to evade income taxes.

The order, signed by Judge Joan Lenard and announced after the markets closed, directs UBS to produce records identifying US taxpayers with accounts in Switzerland who have elected to have their accounts remain hidden from the IRS. The US Government’s Justice Department believes that as many as 10,000 UBS customers collectively have about $20 billion of assets in “undeclaredâ€