Fergie's Tech Blog

Another Liechtenstein Bank Suffers Theft of Client Data

David Crawford and Mike Esterl write in The Wall Street Journal:

Tiny Liechtenstein's reputation as a reliable and discreet tax haven for wealthy Europeans is coming under fresh attack.

German prosecutors say they are investigating the internal theft of confidential client data from Liechtenstein bank Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG, or LLB. Investigators say the bank, which is the alpine principality's second largest, paid blackmailers millions of euros to try to keep the affair secret.

Liechtenstein already is wrestling with fallout from a widening tax-evasion probe in Germany sparked by a then-employee's alleged theft of client data from LGT Group, the principality's largest bank.

In both cases, prosecutors allege, bank employees culled sensitive client information electronically, then hawked it to prospective buyers -- foreign authorities in the case of LGT, and the bank itself and the bank's clients in the case of LLB. While such leaks aren't unprecedented, they are "very, very unusual," said Franz-Hermann Brüner, who heads the European Commission's antifraud office in Brussels.

posted by Fergie @ 2/21/2008 08:33:00 PM