USA UBS, DOJ Seek Stay in Tax Case By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP

UBS, DOJ Seek Stay in Tax Case By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP UBS AG and the U.S. Justice Department jointly have asked a federal court to postpone a hearing scheduled for Monday in order to give the two sides a chance to negotiate a settlement and potentially allow UBS to avoid turning over thousands of client names to the Internal Revenue Service.
BUSINESS NEWS
UBS, DOJ Seek Stay in Tax Case
By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP

UBS AG and the U.S. Justice Department jointly have asked a federal court to postpone a hearing scheduled for Monday in order to give the two sides a chance to negotiate a settlement and potentially allow UBS to avoid turning over thousands of client names to the Internal Revenue Service.

In a filing Sunday morning, UBS and the Justice Department asked that the hearing in Miami be rescheduled for Aug. 3 and 4 if an agreement couldn't be reached. The move staves off what had been an increasing diplomatic fight between the U.S. and Swiss governments over whether Swiss privacy law allowed UBS to hand over the information.

The request for a stay gives UBS time to try and figure out how it can potentially deliver some information to the Justice Department and the IRS without turning over some 52,000 account holders that the IRS seeking as part of a months-long tax-evasion investigation.

That investigation, aided initially by a former UBS private banker, in February forced UBS to agree to a $780 million criminal settlement and an agreement to turn over more than 200 account holders. Those names were turned over because of allegations of tax fraud. Those allegations allowed UBS to hand over the information without violating Swiss privacy laws.

A parallel civil inquiry led by the IRS was aimed at forcing UBS to turn over the 52,000 names. The effort by the IRS to obtain that information had escalated into a diplomatic row and led the Swiss government to say in a court filing that it was prepared to seize any UBS data.

Write to Carrick Mollenkamp at carrick.mollenkamp@wsj.com