COPENHAGEN, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Denmark said on Monday itwould seek the names of its citizens who may have used Swissbank accounts to avoid tax at home, following media reports thatthe Swiss private banking unit of Britain's HSBC helpedits customers do just that.
HSBC on Sunday acknowledged its Swiss business hadexperienced compliance and control failures when it was newlyacquired and not fully integrated.
Reports that HSBC helped customers evade tax stem from aleaked list of account holders obtained by the InternationalConsortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The list included 329 Danes who had 4.8 billion crowns ($730million) in Swiss accounts, said newspaper Politiken, which hadaccess to the data. But although the list was shared by Frenchauthorities with other countries, Denmark had not asked for acopy.
The Danish tax ministry confirmed that an agency reportingto it was responsible for requesting such documents and that ithad not done so at the time.
"The Danish Central Customs and Tax Administration will asquickly as possible ask for the relevant information," theministry said.
Politiken quoted academics as saying that the statute oflimitations for tax evasion was 10 years, which may make somecases too old to prosecute. ($1 = 6.5711 Danish crowns) (Reporting by Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Alexander Smith andDavid Holmes)