A UBS Group AG unit was found guilty by a French court of harassing two whistleblowers who lifted the lid on the bank’s efforts to help wealthy locals dodge taxes.
UBS France — as the unit was known during the investigation — retaliated against its former auditor Nicolas Forissier by sidelining him and refusing to promote him to executive director after he disclosed information to bosses within the company, the Paris criminal court ruled on Monday.
“UBS was trying to bully its employee,” the lead Paris judge said. The court also found the bank guilty of penalizing another whistleblower, Stéphanie Gibaud, who helped French authorities spy on clients at an event organized around the 2011 Roland-Garros tennis tournament.
UBS Europe, which took over from the unit, was fined €75,000 ($81,300) — the maximum allowed by law at the time of the wrongdoing. The court also granted Forissier €50,000 in damages.
The harassment case is an offshoot of a wider legal saga in France that has been going on for more than 15 years. It culminated in a money laundering conviction for the Swiss bank as part of a prosecution effort that stemmed in part from the Forissier report.
That separate case isn’t entirely finished after France’s top court said in 2023 that a €1.8 billion penalty UBS had received should be reexamined, opening the door to a possible cut.
UBS said in a statement that it disagrees with the conviction, which it finds “unjust.” The Swiss bank said it will “analyze the decision and decide on next steps.”
