Mark Branson, chief financial officer for UBS Global Wealth Management, prepares to testify before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Capitol Hill in Washington yesterday. The committee is examining how offshore banks may be helping U.S. clients evade taxes through secret accounts, particularly Zurich-based UBS. (Keystone/AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Outside the U.S. Capitol, a lone busker plays a bluesy Star Spangled Banner. Political staffers and lobbyists shuffle by. The Blackberrys and iPhones they clutch tell them that the U.S. economy is sinking further into recession. Congress has recently voted in the latest eye-popping budget that will thrust the country deeper into debt. And President Obama is thinking of ways that he can turn that around. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is making a speech to a joint session of Congress and strikes a popular note:

“How much safer would everybody’s savings be if the whole world finally came together to outlaw shadow banking systems and offshore tax havens?”

Later on, Senator Carl Levin chairs a hearing on obtaining the names of U.S. clients with Swiss accounts. He’s listening to a statement by Mark Branson, Chief Financial Officer of UBS Wealth Management.

“Mr. Chairman, we deeply regret our breaches of US law. I can honestly say that what took place in one part of our business is not representative of the firm’s culture, nor the values of the 78,000 UBS employees around the world.”

In Florida, the U.S. Justice Department is pursuing a civil court case designed to force UBS to hand over the names of about 47,000 American clients. Mark Branson tells the Senators what they already know, that Swiss secrecy laws prevent them from doing that. 

“We respectfully submit that the U.S. is attempting to resolve this diplomatic dispute in a courtroom, which is neither productive nor proper.”

And as he wraps up the hearing, Senator Levin acknowledges that his focus is indeed switched from UBS to the Swiss government…

“We’re going to everything to take away that ill-begotten gain, because that’s the way we view it and I think that’s the way the world more and more views it. And  Prime Minister Brown today made that very clear in his speech. And I know our President, and I’ve spoken to him personally about his today, at the White House, and I know that his heart is exactly in making sure that we do not lose revenues to these offshore secrecy jurisdictions.”

Daniel Ryntjes for World Radio Switzerland, in Washington

Topics: banks