Wegelin Admitted that its actions had been wrong

SWISS BANK WEGELIN TO CLOSE AFTER US TAX EVASION FINE.

Switzerland's oldest bank is to close permanently after pleading guilty in a New York court to helping Americans evade their taxes.

Wegelin was established in 1741 has also agreed to pay $57.8 m in fines to US authorities.The bank had admitted to allowing more than 100 American citizens to hide $1.2bn from the Internal Revenue Service for almost 10 years.

Jeffrey Neiman,a former US Federal prosecutor who was involved in a previous investigation into swiss banks,siad,"it is unclear whether the bank was required to turnover American client names who held secret Swiss bank accounts.What is clear is that the Justice department is aggressively pursuing foreign banks who have helped Americans commit overseas tax evasion".

Earlier, another Swiss bank UBS agreed to pay a $780 mn fine to US authorities related to tax evasion charges. UBS also  agreed to reveal the details  of US account holders. However, UBS neither  pleaded nor was found guilty.Instead it and US Prosecutors came to what is called a deferred prosecution agreement ,with the fine  being paid in exchange for the charges being dropped.
Source:BBC News-Business.