December 16, 2025, 4:02 p.mDecember 16, 2025, 4:56 p.m
The private bank Julius Baer has been sentenced to a fine of two million euros by an appeals court in Paris. The court thus confirmed the conviction for serious money laundering as part of the so-called “crépuscule” fraud involving CO2 taxes.
The private bank was charged and convicted of money laundering. (symbol image)Image: keystone
However, the appeal court reduced the fine for the Zurich private bank. In March 2022, a French criminal court sentenced the bank to a fine of 5 million euros. The appeal court gave no reasons for its verdict.
However, the verdict is not yet final: it can still be referred to the highest instance, the French Court of Cassation. It has not yet been decided whether Julius Baer will do this. “We will check whether we will appeal to the Court of Cassation,” said a spokesman for the bank when asked by the AWP news agency.
The bank does not see any major financial impact from the case. The spokesman said the potential financial impact of this matter had already been anticipated several years ago by making an appropriate security payment.
Big loss for the tax authorities
It also overturned a first instance judgment that had ordered the Swiss bank to pay 400,000 euros in damages to the French state and rejected the state’s claims in their entirety.
The ongoing fraud cost a total of 1.6 billion euros. (symbol image)
The criminal court had convicted Julius Baer at the time because the bank had failed to carry out the necessary checks on an account in the Singapore branch in 2008. Until it was closed by the beneficiary in October 2008, around 1.9 million euros flowed through this account.
The “Crépuscule” fraud case involving VAT on pollution rights involved an amount of 146 million euros. In 2017 and 2019, twelve people were sentenced to prison terms of up to ten years.
The ongoing fraud in CO2 emissions trading had cost the French tax authorities a total of 1.6 billion euros. The scam was simple: the perpetrators bought pollution rights tax-free in a European country and sold them in France at a price without VAT. The tax was never paid to the state. (sda/awp/afp)
You might also be interested in these articles: