Financial Transparency Coalition

A wealthy American client of UBS pleaded guilty on Thursday to tax fraud, the latest victory for the federal government in its crackdown on UBS and its offshore private banking accounts.

The Justice Department may drop a closely watched legal case aimed at forcing the Swiss bank UBS to divulge the names of 52,000 wealthy American clients suspected of offshore tax evasion, a United States official briefed on the matter said Monday. The move, which would halt an unusually aggressive effort to force Switzerland to lift its veil of banking secrecy, could happen by mid-July.

Switzerland has signed a tentative agreement to share information with the United States about the billions of dollars that US citizens have stashed in secret Swiss bank accounts.

ZURICH (Dow Jones)--UBS AG (UBS) was again at the center of relations between Switzerland and the U.S. Tuesday as the two countries launched talks aimed at agreeing a double-tax treaty which experts say could have implications for the Swiss bank's ongoing legal battle with the Internal Revenue Service.