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Pressed by New Delhi, Switzerland's parliament will consider a legal clarification on assistance to countries such as India, which have got ‘stolen’ data on black money holders, in the second half of the current calendar year.
“We are on the way to ask our parliament to adjust law to ensure we can contribute in a specific situation. The Federal Council will propose a clarification of the legal situation to Parliament which will be done in the second half this year,” Swiss Economic Affairs Minister Johann N Schneider-Ammann, who is currently on a visit to India, said on Friday.
Schneider-Ammann refused to divulge details, saying it is up to Parliament to clarify the legal situation. “There is a will to clarify. It is not decided how to do it. I cannot give details of clarifications. Let it be discussed in Swiss parliament,” he said.
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India has been pressing Switzerland to provide information about accounts of those found in the HSBC list. Switzerland had earlier been refusing to cooperate on the ground that the data was stolen, even as India claimed it got it from legitimate channels. The data was stolen by a French employee of HSBC in Geneva.
At a meeting with the visiting Swiss minister, finance minister Arun Jaitley recalled, that in October last year it was agreed that if India gave “additional evidence about the stolen information of the HSBC accounts”, Switzerland will “cooperate in confirming” that “within a time period”.
“A large number of account holders have made admissions before the Government of India. If admission is an evidence of which they would act, they said indeed they would,” Jaitley told reporters after the meeting.
“This precise fact has been reaffirmed in the meeting. We have made the request to Switzerland and we have asked them to expedite the process of confirmation of details that we have sought,” Jaitley said.
After pressure from India and the international community, Switzerland changed its track. Its federal council had, on Wednesday, decided to propose to Parliament, a clarification of the legal situation regarding administrative assistance based on stolen data. Schneider-Ammann said Switzerland is sensitive to the fact that the issue of black money is important for India and needs to be resolved. There was a list of about 600 Indians who allegedly have accounts at HSBC, Geneva, provided by the French government to New Delhi after a bank employee leaked the data.
The list doubled to 1,200 Indians with a collective holding of Rs 25,000 crore in accounts till 2007, after revelations made by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
When asked if Indian accounts in HSBC would get time-barred for action by the income-tax department, the visiting minister said, “I agree time is a factor. We have to respect Swiss procedures. The process has started with the Swiss government.”
When asked whether the new black money Bill, aimed at nabbing Indians having unaccounted money abroad, would have ramifications for Swiss banks, the minister said it was too early to talk about that as the procedures and law itself first needs to be understood.
Under the new law, those found to be stashing illicit funds in foreign locations, including Swiss banks, would face strict penal action, including up to 10 years in jail and a penalty of 90 per cent of funds in addition to 30 per cent tax levy. However, a one-time ‘compliance window’ will be provided before the law comes into force and this would let the persons with foreign assets to come clean by paying 30 per cent tax and an additional 30 per cent as penalty.
Schneider-Ammann said he discussed business relations and free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, among other issues, with Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
On the Free Trade Association with Europe, Schneider-Ammann said it was too early to put a specific time-frame on when the negotiations could reach a conclusion.
Schneider-Ammann said Europe was going through a delicate economic situation, but the quantitative easing by the European Central Bank has helped the situation.
In his meeting with Sitharaman, Schneider-Ammann had negotiations on the FTA between India and the European FTA, of which Switzerland is a member. “I am sure the negotiations team will continue its discussions and reach some conclusion on sensitive issues like data protection and IPR (intellectual property rights),” he said.
