| As UBS Bid to Convert to US
National Bank Opposed OCC Belatedly
Denies Hearing
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
SOUTH
BRONX/SDNY, Jan 13 –
Amid the FDIC's bid to
eliminate public notice of and
public comment on branch
applications, UBS -- Union
Bank of Switzerland -- is
trying to convert to a
national bank in the US and
become a bank holding company.
On
November 11 Fair Finance Watch
filed opposition to the
Federal Reserve Board and to
the Office of the Comptroller
of the Currency:
Dear Chair Powell, Comproller Gould,
others
This is a
timely first comment on the applications by
UBS Group AG and UBS AG, both of Zurich,
Switzerland, and UBS Americas Holding LLC and
UBS Americas Inc to become bank holding
companies by acquiring UBS Bank USA, Salt Lake
City, Utah, upon the conversion of UBS Bank
USA from a state-chartered industrial bank to
a national bank.
UBS, beyond its involvement in predatory
subprime lending - see, e.g., "UBS to pay $300
million to resolve US mortgage securities
cases," August 4, 2025 - has numerous other
compliance scandal on which public hearings
should be held, on this application and
possible plan to relocate to the
US.
There is tax evasion and retaliation against
whisteblowers: “France: UBS fined in France
for harassing whistleblowers”, 10 March 2025
The Swiss bank UBS was fined €75,000
(CHF71,410), the maximum penalty, in Paris on
Monday for moral harassment by its French
subsidiary of two whistleblowers, who had
denounced the tax evasion system organised by
the bank. UBS Europe, which absorbed the
French branch, was also ordered to pay €50,000
in damages to Nicolas Forissier, the former
head of internal auditing. However, the bank
was acquitted of witness tampering and
obstructing the health, safety and working
conditions committee. According to Forissier’s
lawyer, William Bourdon, this is the first
time in France that a whistleblower has
obtained a conviction against his former
employer. … At the hearing, the public
prosecutor had requested a maximum fine of
€225,000 for the three offences. … In the main
case, UBS France was definitively acquitted in
2021 for complicity in laundering tax fraud,
but fined €1.875 million for complicity in
illegal canvassing. However, the case against
the parent company, UBS AG, continues. In
2019, it was fined a record €3.7 billion, plus
€800 million in damages, for setting up a
“system” to “facilitate” tax evasion by
wealthy French taxpayers between 2004 and
2012. On appeal in 2021, following a change in
case law, the penalty was reduced to a total
of €1.8 billion. And in 2023, the Court of
Cassation definitively confirmed the bank’s
guilt, but cancelled the penalties and
damages, ordering a new trial to re-examine
them.
There are human rights - and managerial -
issues: the Society for Threatened Peoples
Switzerland (STP) filed a specific instance
against UBS Group AG (UBS) at the Swiss NCP.
The complaint concerns the bank’s financial
ties with Hangzhou Hikvision Digital
Technology Co. Ltd. (Hikvision), a provider of
modern surveillance technology that has played
a key role in the mass surveillance of the
Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in
Xinjiang, China. Also involving
private prisons in the US.
There are managerial factor issues,
particularly on an initial application
to become a US bank holding company. Fair
Finance Watch hereby timely requests hearings,
and the denial of these UBS applications. This
comment period should be extended, evidentiary
hearings should be held; and on the current
record, the application should not be
approved.
On
November 25 UBS through Sullivan &
Cromwell submitted a dismissive response, stating
that " FFW criticizes UBS for
business relationships with certain
clients (e.g., private prisons). The
Board has disregarded various
comments based on abstract
socio-political goals in connection
with numerous prior applications,
stating that those comments concern
matters that are outside the scope
of the limited statutory factors
that the Board is authorized to
consider when reviewing an
application under the BHC Act. See
Bank of Montreal, FRB Order No.
2023-01, at 13 n.35 (Jan. 17, 2023);
BB&T Corp., FRB Order No.
2019-16, at 32 n.72 (Nov. 19, 2019)."
Uighurs? Whistleblowers? UBS says
none of it matter. Only
its money.
On January
13, 2025 - months after the comment -
the OCC
wrote to FFW:
"The Office of the
Comptroller of the
Currency (OCC)
acknowledges
receipt of your
email of November
11, 2025. In your
email, you request
the OCC hold a
public hearing on
the conversion
application. Your
request for a
public hearing:
did not
appropriately
describe the
nature of issues
or facts to be
presented in such
a hearing; and,
did not articulate
reasons why
written
submissions would
be insufficient to
make an adequate
presentation of
those issues or
facts to the OCC.
Therefore, your
request for a
public hearing was
denied. We
appreciate your
comments and will
consider them
during our review
of the
application."
No need
for a hearing
on money
laudner.
FFW notes
in the FDIC's pending proposal
RIN 3064-AG10: "the FDIC has
received a limited number of
public comments in response to
subpart C applications....
Therefore, the FDIC is
proposing to eliminate the
public notice and related
public comment period from
subpart C and to make
conforming changes to subpart
A of 12 CFR part 303 of the
FDIC Rules."
See, e.g., Sept
10, 2025: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/the-fdic-is-undercutting-a-key-element-of-the-cra
But now the
Federal regulator(s) blithely
propose(s) to eliminate public
notice and public comment on
banks' proposals to
expand. The above-quoted
reasoning is that few comments
are filed. So, that is now
changing.
***
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