The department called the completion of the program a “milestone” in its battle against offshore tax evasion.

The US Department of Justice has reached its final non-prosecution agreement under the Swiss Bank Program, through which it has imposed $1.36 billion in penalties on 80 banks since its first NPA with BSI in March last year.

The final deal under the program, which enables Swiss banks to avoid prosecution over undeclared US-related accounts, was made with HSZH Verwaltungs. In 2002, the bank was acquired from UBS by SGKB, the state-owned cantonal bank of St Gallen. Between September 19, 2008, and January 26, 2009, HSZH knowingly opened six undeclared accounts for US clients with a total value of $9.2 million in assets under management. All six clients had previously been with UBS.

The DoJ said HSZH conducted a US cross-border banking business that helped some US clients open and maintain undeclared accounts in Switzerland and hide their assets and income from the US government. The bank will pay a $49.757 million penalty.

“The department’s Swiss Bank Program has been a successful, innovative effort to get the financial institutions that facilitated fraud on the American tax system to come forward with information about their wrongdoing – and to ensure that they are held responsible for it,” said acting associate attorney general Stuart Delery in a statement. 

“As we have seen over the last year, Swiss banks are paying an appropriate penalty for their misconduct, and the information and continuing cooperation we have required the banks to provide in order to participate in the program is allowing us to systematically attack offshore tax avoidance schemes.”

Big Swiss names that have dodged criminal charges through the program include Union Bancaire Privée, which earlier this month agreed to a penalty of $187.767 million, Lombard Odier which will pay $99.809 million; and Deutsche Bank's Swiss division which was handed a penalty of $31.026 million.

Caroline Ciraolo, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s tax division called the end of the Swiss Bank Program a “substantial milestone in the department’s ongoing efforts to combat offshore tax evasion”.

“Using the flood of information flowing from various sources, the department is investigating this criminal conduct, referring appropriate matters to the Internal Revenue Service for civil enforcement and pursuing leads in jurisdictions well beyond Switzerland. Individuals and entities engaged in offshore tax evasion are well advised to come forward now, because the window to get to us before we get to you is rapidly closing,” she said.