French judges have ordered the Swiss bank UBS to pay a €1.1bn guarantee while it investigates charges that it helped rich clients hide money from the taxman, reports The Guardian.
UBS has until the end of September to deposit the money, which amounts to 42.6% of its after-tax profits and 2.8% of shareholder funds, with the court.
The bank has said it will appeal against the order and the calculation of the amount of the guarantee, which it described as deeply flawed and highly politicised.
UBS is under investigation for allegedly encouraging tax evasion between 2004 and 2012 and has already been fined €10m by French financial regulators for control failures that could have allowed clients to avoid taxes.
Last year, two French judges ordered a formal investigation into charges of "illegal selling" by the Swiss bank and "complicity" by its French branch, after former staff claimed it had encouraged wealthy clients to set up double bank accounts to hide the movement of capital from France to Switzerland.
An anonymous note sent to the Financial Control Authority allegedly detailed how non-declared accounts set up by French sales staff in Switzerland were to be registered on the bank's computers.
In June last year, regulators who had carried out a separate inquiry fined the bank for waiting more than 18 months before setting up the controls required to monitor and stop such activities. UBS said at the time it disagreed with many of the regulator's conclusions.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.