Retaining walls – asset recovery in Europe

The US authorities may have swung a legal and diplomatic sledgehammer at Swiss banking secrecy but it withstood the blows and survives, a central pillar of local law. Elsewhere on the Continent, legislative barriers also continue to frustrate the search for hidden property as Robert Stokes reports.

Switzerland has just signed a so-called ‘Rubik deal’ with Austria to safeguard Swiss banking secrecy in return for it levying withholding taxes anonymously on undeclared savings and investments held in Switzerland by Austrian nationals.