Switzerland’s top court knocks down bid to extend banking secrecy rules

Switzerland’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that prosecutors cannot extend Swiss banking secrecy rules to all corners of the globe to pursue whistleblowers, Reuters reports. The Federal Supreme Court by a 3-2 majority rejected an appeal by Zurich prosecutors in the case involving former private banker Rudolf Elmer, who denied all the charges. The Swiss Banking Act requires employees of Swiss-regulated banks to keep client information confidential. However, a number of staff have leaked account details to foreign authorities in the past decade as Western governments crack down on tax evasion. Zurich prosecutors had asked the court to interpret the law so that the secrecy obligation is widened to include people with looser working relationships to Swiss banks and their subsidiaries abroad.