Stefan Buck was head of private banking and a member of the executive committee at now-defunct Bank Frey & Co in Switzerland.
In April 2013, he and Edgar Paltzer, a former partner of Swiss law firm Niederer Kraft & Frey, were charged with conspiring with US taxpayer clients and others to hide millions of dollars in offshore accounts and evade US taxes on the income earned on those accounts.
Paltzer pleaded guilty in August 2013 and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Despite Switzerland having no extradition treaty with the United States, Buck agreed to travel to the US in 2016 to face the charges.
In a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, Buck was found ‘not guilty’, according to various media reports.
Testimony at trial
Newswire Bloomberg reported that Buck declined to testify at trial. Instead, his lawyers called three witnesses including a Zurich-based US tax lawyer who told the court that Buck had referred dozens of clients to him to help them disclose undeclared accounts to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
An employee of Bank Frey testified that Buck was a low-level employee who couldn’t open accounts without the permission of compliance officials and executives.
The jury deliberated for a little over a day before reaching its verdict.
