Former HSBC Switzerland Employee Handed Five-Year Jail Term

ZURICH—Hervé Falciani, a former employee at the Swiss branch of HSBC Holdings PLC who widely dispersed once-secret data about the bank's clients, was handed a five-year prison sentence in a federal criminal court in Switzerland Friday.

Mr. Falciani, who worked for HSBC in Geneva, was convicted of aggravated industrial espionage. The court found that he had sought to offer stolen data about HSBC's clients to a handful of banks in Lebanon.

In addition, the court found that Mr. Falciani tried to provide the data to France's National Division of Financial Investigations, Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs in the U.K.

Mr. Falciani's data caused a stir in February, when it was used by several media outlets to publish a series of stories about how HSBC allegedly helped high-profile clients use their Swiss accounts to avoid paying taxes. The bank said at that time that the Swiss business has been "overhauled."

A spokeswoman for Switzerland's State Secretariat for International Financial Matters said recently that the country anticipates a flood of new requests for assistance from foreign tax authorities tracking down information about Swiss bank accounts, based on Mr. Falciani's data.

Mr. Falciani, a 43-year-old former computer analyst at HSBC, didn't attend his trial in Switzerland, which he fled in late 2008 after he was questioned by Swiss police. Marc Henzelin, an attorney representing Mr. Falciani, said he hasn't had a chance to read the court's decision. But he said that based on his understanding of the ruling, Mr. Falciani is likely to appeal.

In a statement, HSBC said it welcomes the Swiss court's decision. "This was not a victimless crime," the bank said.

In 2012, Mr. Falciani was detained in Barcelona on an international arrest warrant. He was held in detention for a few months, before a Spanish court ruled in 2013 against his extradition to Switzerland.

In December last year, Switzerland's Office of the Attorney General charged Mr. Falciani with pilfering HSBC's client data between 2006 and 2008, with the intention of "cashing in," according to a statement. The Attorney General's office said at the time that Mr. Falciani had fled Switzerland the night before he was due for further questioning by the authorities.

On the eve of his trial late last month, Mr. Falciani held a news conference in France, near the Switzerland border, where he said he is continuing to work with authorities and investigators interested in his data.

Max Colchester in London contributed to this article.

Write to John Letzing at [e-mail]

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November 27, 2015 12:05 ET (17:05 GMT)

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