UBS and the Swiss government, rocked by months of embarrassing details about bank secrecy and guilty pleas for UBS clients, agreed to settle a tax-evasion probe with US authorities. The agreement appears to signal that thousands of US client accounts, hidden in offshore shadows, will be turned over to US revenue agents. The settlement, announced…
Category: Non-U.S.
AU privacy law update expected soon
The Special Minister of State, Senator Joe Ludwig expects to publish a reponse to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s report on updating the Privacy Laws “within weeks”. The Government had set itself a loose deadline of responding sometime between August 11, 2009 and February 2010. Read more on iTnews.
McKinnon loses extradition appeal
The British computer hacker Gary McKinnon failed today in his last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition to the US where he could face a sentence of up to 60 years in a high-security prison. The high court decided against overturning a refusal by Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, to sanction a trial of the…
Different ID card for Irish nationals
People in Northern Ireland who identify themselves as Irish will receive a different ID card to those who identify themselves as British. Following the unveiling of the ID card’s design, it has been revealed that the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) must respect identity rights under the Belfast Agreement and issue a separate ID card…