Jewish Assets
Dreyfus was founded in 1813 in Basel by a Jewish immigrant from France. It grew to 7,000 accounts valued at 18 billion Swiss francs ($18.2 billion) in 2013, the accord says. Of those, 855 were U.S. accounts valued at $1.76 billion.
Some of those accounts were held in the name of Panamanian corporations, a practice that began after World War II because Jewish clients wanted to “protect their assets for reasons of personal safety” while also hiding them from governments, according to the pact. Of the U.S. accounts, 33 were held in the name of Panamanian entities, with bank employees serving as directors for most.
One such account disguised weekly checks ranging from $3,900 to $4,100 to a U.S. woman or her relatives from 1998 to 2013. From another account, opened with $1 million, $925,000 worth of weekly checks were sent to a U.S. man and his three sons, according to the agreement. Other clients used 34 offshore entities in Liechtenstein, the Isle of Man, Liberia, the Bahamas, Nevis and Mauritius.
‘Lack of Candor’
After 2008, when the U.S. began a criminal investigation of UBS Group AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, other Swiss firms began shutting down U.S. accounts because of the risk of being implicated in clients’ tax evasion.
The Dreyfus exit process “languished” until 2012, when a U.S.-born manager was appointed to oversee the operation.
Dreyfus showed a “deliberate lack of candor” by failing to tell the Justice Department that the manager had five accounts valued at $1 million that he didn’t declare to the IRS, according to the agreement. Dreyfus didn’t tell the Justice Department until the manager voluntarily disclosed his accounts to the IRS, giving him a chance to “discreetly regularize his U.S. tax matters.”
The bank tried to use his disclosure, among others, to lower its penalty. When the Justice Department balked, it withdrew its request.
Credit Agricole’s payment was the second-largest of the year after BSI SA, which agreed to pay $211 million in March. Alexandre Barat, a spokesman for Credit Agricole, declined to comment on its pact. Keith Krakaur, a lawyer for Baumann, didn’t immediately return a call.