HSBC whistleblower to appear at watchdog conference

(CNS business): Hervé Falciani, the man responsible for exposing the financial shenanigans at HSBC, has agreed to speak at this year’s OffshoreAlert, conference organisers have said. Falciani took reams of documents from HSBC Switzerland when he left seven years ago but they were only released into the public domain recently. The information fuelled a barrage of media coverage about tax evasion, corruption and money laundering around the world, including a BBC Panorama documentary all of which led to the bank posting an ad in the UK press apologising for its past conduct.  

Falciani leaked files with details of over 130,000 clients of HSBC in Switzerland, where he worked as IT manager from 2001 to 2008.  At the conference, to be held in Miami in May, the whistleblower will join a session entitled ‘Inside the HSBC Leaks’ by Gerard Ryle, Director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

At the weekend the bank printed an apology and said it had “no appetite” to deal with clients seeking to dodge tax. The bank’s chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, said it had been “a painful experience” but the exposure related to historical events and today’s standards were not in place in the Swiss operations at the time.

“We must put the recent media coverage into context. A former employee of the Swiss private bank stole data more than eight years ago,” he said as he tried to downplay the damaging revelations.

Tags: HSBC

Category: Finance, Financial Crime