Financial Transparency Coalition

LONDON—British high street banks have accepted millions of pounds in deposits from corrupt Nigerian politicians, raising serious questions about their commitment to tackling financial crime, warned Global Witness in a report published today. By taking money from corrupt Nigerian governors between 1999 and 2005, Barclays, NatWest, RBS, HSBC and UBS helped to fuel corruption and entrench poverty in Nigeria.

The Swiss government has announced that it has examined the dossiers of over four thousand UBS clients suspected of committing tax evasion offences in the United States, but they have only transmitted their findings to the US authorities for around half of the examined cases. Under the terms of the administrative agreement agreed between Switzerland and the US in August 2009, criteria were established for proceeding with an administrative assistance request submitted by the Inland Revenue Service. This included a requirement that the Swiss Federal Tax Authority examines 4,450 UBS...

CBS News' 60 Minutes has done a follow-up piece on the UBS/Swiss Banking saga. It aired last Sunday evening. Check out the segment below:

ZURICH (Dow Jones) -- A Swiss court Monday said it backed a U.S.-Swiss deal governing the handover of thousands of pages of confidential data on clients of UBS AG (UBS) to U.S. tax officials as "binding," rejecting an appeal by a client of the Swiss bank in a test case.