12th Oct 2015 10:14
VIENNA (Alliance News) - The Swiss Federal Criminal Court postponed the data theft trial against former HSBC bank employee Herve Falciani because he did not show up at the first hearing on Monday, Swiss media reported.
If the French-Italian defendant also fails to appear at the next scheduled date on November 2, he can be tried in absentia, according to Swiss law.
Falciani allegedly offered client data pointing to tax evasion to authorities in France and other countries, prompting investigations against HSBC clients and against the Britain-based lender in what is known as the Swiss Leaks case.
The former IT specialist stands accused of conducting economic espionage, unauthorized acquisition of data, and violating professional secrecy as well as banking secrecy.
If convicted, he faces up to seven and a half years in prison.
Falciani fled Switzerland in 2008. Swiss authorities offered him free passage to guarantee that he would not be arrested during the trial, but he did not make use of it, the judge at the Bellinzona court said, according to Swiss news agency sda.
He allegedly collected data from about 100,000 accounts between 2006 and 2008 while he worked in Geneva at the Swiss private banking arm of HSBC.
HSBC helped wealthy clients evade millions of dollars in taxes, including persons linked to arms trafficking and corruption, according to the so-called Swiss Leaks media investigation of the data trove.
Copyright dpa
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