FINMA 'wrong to break secrecy laws'

A SWISS court said yesterday that the country's financial regulator was wrong to break strict secrecy laws last February when it ordered UBS to hand over the files of nearly 300 clients to US authorities.

FINMA's decision to allow UBS to transfer client data to US tax officials, weakening the country's bank secrecy rules in an effort to end a damaging probe into its biggest bank, prompted clients to pull billions of francs from accounts.