Ex-Banker Tells Judge He Doesn’t ‘Cultivate Memories’ of UBS

(Bloomberg) -- A former UBS Group AG executive trying to overturn his conviction at a landmark tax trial said he had no recollection of assets managed by his team focusing on French clients out of Switzerland.

Philippe Wick, who ran the France International desk before leaving UBS more than a decade ago, said that “he doesn’t quite know what he’s being accused of” and wanted to move on. When asked by Judge Hervé Robert about how much wealth his team managed, he responded that his memory of the matter wasn’t precise.

Wick is one of several bankers tied to UBS appealing their convictions linked to charges that the lender helped clients launder funds through numbered accounts and trusts that should have been declared to French tax officials. The bank is also challenging a 4.5 billion-euro ($5.4 billion) penalty as part of the guilty verdict two years ago.

“It’s something that goes way back that I don’t remember and don’t want to remember,” Wick told the Paris appeals court Tuesday. He said he didn’t “cultivate memories” of his time at UBS.

Wick and UBS were also found guilty of covertly dispatching Swiss bankers across the border to seek out new French clients even though they lacked the paperwork to offer such services in France. The bank and the pair deny the accusations.

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While UBS’s French unit -- set up in 1999 -- was focused on gaining new clients, Wick said the France International desk’s goal was to maintain longstanding relationships. It’s that aspect of his job he remembers much better.

“I’m very attached to meetings, people,” he added. “Emotion, empathy were important values for us.”

Judge Robert replied that “that’s not how I imagined the banking world.”

On Monday, Hervé d’Halluin, a former banker at UBS’s French unit, recounted how a pair of hunting trips he organized more than 15 years ago was a “clever” way to approach a businessman. While the events were funded by a Swiss colleague, who wasn’t charged in the probe, d’Halluin denied ever helping him unlawfully recruit new clients in France.

Patrick de Fayet, the former head of front office and then general manager at the French unit, also tried on Monday to minimize the importance of events such as hunting, golfing or opera trips that were co-organized with colleagues across the border.

Read more: UBS Gave Cars, Bonuses to French Bankers Who Lured Clients

Wick said on Tuesday that the trips were designed to build up a positive image of the bank and its wealth management staff.

“An event, be it golf or music, isn’t a platform to recruit new clients, it’s a platform for emotions,” the former executive said. “The guests, when they go back home, we want them to think ‘gosh, UBS is amazing, I want to go see Mr. d’Halluin again’.”

Concerning the setting up of foundations or trusts, Wick said UBS bankers never proposed such services unless a client made a specific request. He also dismissed the notion that the term “complex money” was ever used by colleagues to refer to undeclared accounts but instead clients wishing to invest in a less traditional fashion.

“Tax issues were never our concern,” Wick said. “We weren’t tax experts, we were wealth managers.”

The appeal is set to last until March 24.

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