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HSBC faces multi-million dollar lawsuit in Argentina

Wednesday, 11 March 2015 9:27 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 11 March 2015 9:27 AM ]

HSBC in Argentina

Manoel Giffoni
Press TV, Buenos Aires

The British banking giant HSBC is under heavy scrutiny these days in Argentina. Following the criminal action recently taken against the London based bank for tax evasion and money laundering, the Argentine Tax authority, AFIP, now filed a cash repatriation demand in London to get back 3.5 billion US dollars. According to the head of the tax agency Ricardo Echegaray, that's the whooping amount that HSBC facilitated thousands of clients to stash in offshore accounts at its Swiss branch in order to dodge its taxes.

Although the British bank alleged it has been cooperating with the Argentine authorities, a federal court proved otherwise when revealed that thousands of documents relating to the Swiss accounts were purposely destroyed when a US-owned storage facility suffered a mysterious arson attack last year.

Officials said that HSBC built a platform to help clients evade taxes and these actions threatened the stability of the Argentine government. Meanwhile the Parliament established a special committee to not only to probe the HSBC case but also to investigate whether other global financial corporations like JP Morgan were involved in tax evasion activities using similar procedures.

HSBC top officers could receive an up to 10-year term if the court finds them guilty of the charges leveled by the Argentine government. President Cristina Kirchner said that unlike some neoliberal European governments, her administration will have a zero tolerance policy against corporate crime and international money laundering.

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