The guilty plea is being interpreted by the financial services sector as a sign that more banks might need to confess all to the US Internal Revenue Service before they too are forced into guilty pleas and huge damage to their reputations. The price they would pay is giving up information, like Credit Suisse. Some 100 Swiss banks are thought to have prepared to open their records to the US authorities. Lawyers will clearly be heavily involved in any such process. 

Wealth of information

Kathryn Keneally, head of the US Justice Department’s tax division, said: ‘We expect to get from the Swiss banks a wealth of information that will lead us to the rest of the world, and that information will be fueling our investigations for some time into the future.’ Source: ABA