18 February 2015, 19:17 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — France's financial state prosecutor filed a request on Wednesday to bring HSBC's Swiss private bank to criminal trial for helping customers dodge taxes and conceal billions in assets, financial sources said Friday.
France's Le Monde daily cited its sources as saying the state financial prosecutor was seeking criminal charges against the UK-based bank for "aggravated tax fraud laundering" after HSBC reportedly refused to a 1.4-billion-dollar settlement to avoid a trial.
The scandal followed a 2010 data leak by a computer expert from HSBC's Geneva office who blew the lid on the bank's massive tax evasion scheme that ran up to 2007. Since then, around 60 rich French clients of the Swiss branch have been placed under investigation for hiding money from French tax collectors.
Le Monde estimates that a total of 180.6 billion euros ($189.4 billion) went through the Swiss subsidiary during the period from November 2006 to March 2007.
HSBC is the world's second-largest bank and is headquartered in London. It has an international network of 6,200 offices in 74 countries, serving around 52 million customers.
