The highest court of the French judicial order rejected, in a judgment dated Tuesday, an appeal filed by the bank to challenge its referral to the Paris Criminal Court.

The former head of internal audit Nicolas Forissier and Stéphanie Gibaud, former head of event marketing, since dismissed, had contributed to denouncing the practices of the Swiss group at the end of the 2000s and to the triggering of an investigation in France into a vast system of tax evasion.

In 2017, the investigating judge ordered that UBS France be tried for moral harassment, but dismissed the prosecution for two other offenses.

But after many procedural back and forths, the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal finally dismissed the bank in early March for moral harassment but also for obstructing the regular operation of the CHSCT and witness tampering.

A dismissal now final.

Nicolas Forissier, former head of internal audit at UBS France, who became a whistleblower, on May 11, 2022 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives

"All the Pavlovian appeals of UBS fail one after the other. The only result sought: to delay a public trial on unprecedented facts", reacted to AFP the lawyers of Mr. Forissier, Me William Bourdon and Apolline Gangster.

"After yet another move by UBS to try to evade the criminal trial that awaits it, the Court of Cassation has just rejected its last appeal. The bank's trial will therefore take place", rejoiced Me David Koubbi, adviser to Mrs Gibaud.

The lawyer for UBS France did not respond to AFP's requests.

According to elements of the investigation consulted by AFP, Nicolas Forissier would have suffered a form of blackmail from the management, who would have excluded him from a job protection plan to encourage him not to testify in another proceeding and to sign an enhanced confidentiality clause.

UBS is also suspected of having exerted pressure on the CHSCT (Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committee), and of having intimidated its secretary Stéphanie Gibaud, to control and censor the minutes of the meeting.

In December 2021, the Swiss bank was ordered on appeal to pay a total of 1.8 billion euros for having set up a "system" aimed at "facilitating" tax evasion by wealthy French taxpayers between 2004 and 2012. parent company lodged an appeal in cassation, but not the French subsidiary for which the sentence is final.

© 2022 AFP