The Swiss authorities have charged former Julius Baer banker Rudolf Elmer with contravening banking secrecy laws. Elmer is alleged to have leaked details of Cayman Islands client accounts via WikiLeaks between 2007 and 2011, long after he left the bank's Cayman division. He is also charged with offering bank account data to Germany's finance ministry.
“Elmer sees himself as a whistle-blower,” prosecutor Peter Giger said by telephone. “He has a message he wants to bring across. I am convinced he broke the law in trying to do that.”
Countries including the U.S. and Germany have used testimony from former Swiss bankers or stolen client data to pursue crackdowns on tax evasion. Swiss laws threaten bank employees with a jail term if they divulge client information. Elmer was detained in January 2011 and held for about five months on a judge’s order after prosecutors argued that he might tamper with material important to their investigation, Giger said. He said Elmer remains free as the case continues.
He handed over two CDs he said contained information of tax dodging by more than 2,000 “high-net worth individuals” and corporations to WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange in 2011.
He said in 2011 that "I think, as a banker, I have the right to stand up if (I think) something is wrong."
Elmer worked for Julius Baer from 1987 till 2002, where he had risen to the position chief operating officer for the bank’s Cayman Islands division. There he claimed to have found evidence of tax evasion, and his employer’s complicity in the illegal activities. The bank denies the charges, and accuses Elmer of fabricating documents and threatening two staff members.
The former banker lived in self-imposed exile in Mauritius after being sacked at Julius Baer and became a loud whistleblower against Switzerland’s banking industry.
He was arrested in 2010 and faces trial in Switzerland for contravening banking laws. If convicted, he could face up to eight months in prison.
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