“I think I might have some idea.”
“They’re shitting themselves!”
“Good. I’ll send over a pallet of toilet paper.”
Then I got an email from Peter Kurer. “Mr. Birkenfeld, a pair of internal investigators from Zurich headquarters would like to interview you tomorrow. Are you available?”
“I’ll clear my calendar,” I replied.
Then I took Dr. Poncet out to lunch at the Hotel des Bergues, just across the footbridge on the other side of the lake. We had lobster risotto in the same bar where Ian Fleming used to hang out when he was studying for a year in Geneva. It was the perfect place for conspiratorial conversation: dark chestnut wood, royal blue brocade chairs, rich Persian carpets, and discreet waiters who kept their distance.
“Listen, Doc,” I said. “These goons are going to try to snow me, get me to back off, and make it all go away.”
“That will not happen, Bradley,” said Poncet. “Because I shall be there with you. We’re in the middle of legal proceedings and you should not be there without your ‘gunslinger,’ like in one of those westerns you Americans like so much.”
I smiled. “Like Unforgiven?”
“I haven’t seen that film, but the title sounds apropos.”
The next morning Dr. Poncet and I appeared at the same UBS headquarters building where I’d met with Monica and Juerg. By this time my name and face had been flashed to all the UBS security desks like some sort of BOLO (“Be on the Lookout”), so we got ourselves a wary escort up to the designated floor and into a small sterile conference room. Inside, the two internal investigators from Zurich were standing on the other side of the table, Mssrs. Schmidt and deCourton. They looked like a pair of skinny twins from Men in Black. Dr. Poncet took out his business card and placed it on the table. Their eyes glowed.
“What is your attorney doing here, Mr. Birkenfeld?” one of them demanded.
Before I could answer, Poncet pushed me aside and snapped, “Number one, Mr. Birkenfeld does not trust this firm. Number two, he certainly does not trust either of you. So, if you have an objection to my presence, we can leave right now.”
“No, no, no.” The other one waved his hands. “We’ve got to report back to Zurich!”
“Then I suggest you sit down and shut up,” Poncet snapped. “And let’s simply do this.”
The whole thing was like a boxing match, with me reiterating everything I’d done and why I’d done it, and those two clowns dodging and weaving. Dr. Poncet didn’t interrupt much or whisper cautions in my ear, because I’d already briefed him on my plan. I was going to feed these dudes some accurate information, and some stuff I’d just made up, because after this I was going to use my friends in the bank and “backdoor” these guys. If they were going to conduct a serious internal inquiry, they’d look into all of my documented claims. If not, the whole thing would be just a sham dog-and-pony show, as I expected.
After an hour, they packed up their notebooks and briefcases.
“We are going to conduct a very thorough investigation,” one of them promised while the other nodded.
“I’m sure you are, gentlemen,” I said. “Have fun.”
Well, I was right again. Peter Kurer called for a full and formal internal review. It took about a month, but he and his little gray men whitewashed the entire scandal. Out of the thirty-plus people on the Americas Desk in Geneva, they briefly interviewed only twelve. And up in Zurich, where an identical Net New Money operation was still in full swing, they didn’t speak to a single soul! None of the “creative” accusations I’d made were even mentioned. My backdoor intel was just too good. Sometimes I hate being right.
Finally I got an email from Kurer, in which he hopped around like a ballerina on a bed of hot coals.
“We have conducted a most thorough investigation, and I am pleased to say that all of your concerns have been resolved. Apparently some small missteps were made in the past, and it is understandable that you misinterpreted some old emails and communications which, over time, have become irrelevant … ”
Blah, blah, blah, blah. He didn’t address a single slab of the Swiss cow dung that was smeared all over everyone’s shoes. I was furious. Treat me like a loose cannon and a traitor, fine. But call me a liar? Now you’re playing with fire. His letter ended with a tag line, and then I understood its prime objective.
“Given that the investigation is now concluded, we would like to reach a settlement with you regarding your bonus. Please do get back to me on this at your earliest convenience.”
I faxed the letter over to Dr. Poncet. He called Peter Kurer direct.
“I see that you’d like to settle with Mr. Birkenfeld,” Poncet said. “We’re amenable to that. You owe him 600,000 Swiss francs. Write him a check for that amount and we’ll go away.”
Boom! Broadside with all cannons firing. UBS Legal went nuts and their team of lawyers streamed into court for preliminary hearings, hopping and fuming and yelling “Foul!” while Poncet and I sat there and yawned. But the judge wasn’t buying their bullshit and he gave them the option to settle it amicably, or risk a full-blown trial, with all the horrors of bad press and publicity. I went home again to wait it out. James Woods called me up and we went out drinking at La Clémence, a trendy bar-cafe in the Old Town with big green umbrellas and fresh draft.
“You should just see what’s going on at the Desk,” he told me as he swigged his St. Andrew’s Ale. “Your name spits from their mouths like they’re talking about Osama bin Laden.”
“That’s pretty funny, James, since they’re probably his bankers.”
“No, seriously, Brad. I think they might be ordering up custom-made dartboards with your face on them. You’ve got a big set of bollocks doing this.”
“Well, what else does a man have but his balls?”
The bank made one more stab at a pathetic settlement, which was another dumbass tactical error. They called up Dr. Poncet and offered me CHF 100,000; one-sixth of what they owed me. I was pissed enough, but I thought Poncet was going to bust a gut.
“We shall see you at trial!” he yelled through the phone.
But as that date grew closer, everyone at UBS headquarters knew they were going to lose. The Swiss laws and regulations regarding employment status were completely inflexible and they knew the judge was going to rip them a new one. For that one moment in time, I admired the whole Swiss “pole up your ass” thing. That judge wasn’t going to budge. So, apparently the day before the trial, Zurich headquarters called Bovay in Geneva and said, “Christian, just pay him his fucking money!”
And so it was. We all gathered outside the courtroom in counsels’ chambers, where the UBS lead attorney, from the prestigious law firm of Lenz & Staehelin, who looked like he’d been through a train wreck, muttered his offer.
“Mr. Birkenfeld, we are prepared to wire you 575,000 Swiss francs first thing tomorrow morning. Will you agree to that?”
I walked around the table, clapped him on the shoulder, and smiled.
“That’ll do just fine,” I said. Just to stick the knife in deeper, I added, “And you’re going to pay me offshore, right?”
The guy snapped his pencil and turned so red I thought he was having a stroke. Dr. Poncet took my elbow and dragged me out of there. We went to a local bar and celebrated my historic win over champagne. I had sued the largest bank in the world, in their own backyard, and won!
I partied pretty hard for the next ten days. After all, I’d just trumped one of the most powerful banking institutions on earth at their own dirty card game and gone home the winner. The Pussy Cat Club, another old Ian Fleming haunt, was just around the corner and up the hill from my Eaux-Vives flat. I’d been a regular there for years and the Russian and Ukrainian dancers were always happy to see me, especially now as I bought them rounds of overpriced champagne and got girl-handled by a pair of stunning blondes named Natascha and Svetlana. But pretty soon the blush was off the rose. For the first time in my life, I wasn�
�t sleeping well at night.
You might think that a sudden injection of half-a-million-plus would be an effective relaxer, but I already had plenty of money, and winning my bonus wasn’t doing the trick. One morning, after having finally crashed at four a.m., I sat straight up in my bed at seven to the sounds of the trams starting to roll. My sheets were rumpled, a fire still smoldered in the hearth, an empty bottle of champagne bobbed in a bucket of melted ice, and my bathroom mirror was adorned with a big pair of red lips crafted in lipstick. Nothing about the night before was very clear, but one thing was: I wasn’t done with UBS.
That’s when I realized that I hadn’t won a damn thing. UBS had. The whole corrupt Swiss banking monstrosity had. I’d been working with and for that system for a decade, made them tons of money, and built up their whole North American cash-sucking game into an exquisite art form. And even with all of that, they were ready to screw me, my colleagues, and their shareholders without a shred of integrity or a hint of regret. Even after I’d caught them red-handed, they’d lied and connived and tried to ream me one more time for good measure. Sure, they’d cried and fussed and fought me over my bonus, but it was all just a sham. Six hundred thousand bucks? That was lunch money to UBS! They could have been smart and apologized, doubled my bonus, bought me a new car, and thrown me a farewell party. The expense wouldn’t have fazed them, and maybe if they’d made such gestures, I might have just walked away.
But not this way. Not with the metallic taste of betrayal still in my mouth. My bank account was flush; I could do anything I wanted. I could start my own private equity business or just tool around Europe or go home and visit my family and friends. But the whole thing was still stuck in my craw like a rotten apple core. They doubted my determination and resourcefulness. They thought they could just pay up and continue doing their dirty business, while I rode off into the sunset like some dumbass American rodeo clown. Wrong. I wasn’t half done with them, not by a long shot. Too many regular folks who could barely afford their overblown tax bills had been harmed by this whole Swiss scam, and during my career I’d been one of their top enablers. And the idea that those UBS bastards would just carry on fronting for worldwide fat cats and bad actors, while not giving a damn about anyone else’s laws, or the guys like me who’d pay the price, made me furious. There had to be some way to end it all.
I couldn’t talk about my roiling inner conflict with any of my friends in Geneva; they were mostly bankers like me, shackled to Swiss regulations about discretion and secrecy. But I had one very close friend I could trust, Sanjay Kumar. He was a quiet professional, a trust expert born in India and raised in Switzerland, and we’d done some business deals together but had never worked for the same people. Sanjay was all class, tall and lanky, happily married and calm as Lake Geneva in July. His only “peccadilloes” were fine art and classic old cars. “Trust” was his calling card.
I arranged to meet him for dinner at La Favola, a quiet little Italian restaurant in the Old Town where cash was the only accepted payment. It was a weeknight and no one was in there but us, the waiters, and ten empty tables of fine linens, gleaming silverware, and antique wood paneling. I pushed my pasta l’arrabiata around with a fork.
“I can’t seem to let it go, Sanjay.”
“But you won, Brad,” he said in his Indian-British lilt. “I heard you were brilliant.” Sanjay used that word sparingly.
“I haven’t won anything but the money. I think I need to take this further.”
“What exactly does ‘further’ mean?”
“The Americans.”
He stopped eating, sat back, and sipped his Pinot Noir. “You do realize, my friend, that you’d not only be risking prosecution here in Switzerland, but perhaps more. You might be risking your life.”
“Not if I can get protection from the US government.”
Sanjay shrugged. “Well, Brad, you know I shall support you in whatever course you decide to take.”
“I know,” I said with a smile. “That’s why we’re having this dinner.”
He smiled back. “And that’s why you’re picking up the tab.”
We parted and I walked on home, past the glowing windows of Davidoff’s cigars, Auer’s fine chocolates, and Bally’s butter-soft leathers, recalling how once I’d been so enthralled by all those treats and toys. Now all that stuff was suddenly meaningless. My conversation with Sanjay had been as close as I’d come to consulting a shrink. But I didn’t need one. I knew what I had to do and was determined that my strategy would succeed.
I’d had lots of time to think about the things I’d done, and I wasn’t happy about them. American taxpayers were always struggling to make ends meet, while the rich got richer, squirreled away their money, and duped the IRS. The same thing was happening all over the world, and the sneaky Swiss were the banking pirates making it all happen. I was going to take it to the US government. I was pretty damn certain the Internal Revenue Service or the Department of Treasury would be fascinated by the secrets only someone like me could reveal, and only powerful law enforcement bodies such as they could topple the moribund Swiss banking castles. Hell, maybe they’d even be grateful. But getting some kind of big reward for my revelations didn’t even cross my mind. Besides, at that time no such whistle-blower law existed.
However, I wasn’t going to just show up in Washington, DC, with a smile and a pile of secrets. I was still a Swiss resident, and unless someone in the United States issued me a subpoena, I wouldn’t be able to name names. I’d have to tread carefully.
Back at my flat I sat down at my computer and looked at my over-priced watch. It was six hours earlier in the States, still the middle of the business day in Washington. If I was going to whistle-blow to the US authorities, I knew I’d need a pack of high-powered attorneys backing me up. I had no illusions about a government welcoming committee with party balloons and a cake. There was a chance they might view me as complicit, and it could turn into a brawl—with me on the ropes. I wasn’t going in naked, armed with only a gold Montblanc pen.
I started trolling the Internet, picking out the names of the big firms I knew: Williams & Connolly, LLP; Hogan Lovells, LLP; Arnold & Porter, LLP; Covington & Burling, LLP. They were all rated as top litigators with experts in finance and tax law. I thought about my pitch and how to pose it without revealing too much, and made my first call to Williams & Connolly, asking for a top litigator who’d represent a client in matters of tax-evasion revelations. One of the partners got on the line.
“Please pardon my need for discretion, sir,” I said. “But for the moment, my name is John Smith.”
“Yes, Mr. Smith?”
“I am an American citizen, currently a Swiss resident. I’m looking for representation in a matter involving a Swiss banking institution.”
“I see. And which institution might that be, Mr. Smith?”
“UBS, AG.”
“Mmmm.” He paused for a moment and I could hear some papers rattling. “I’m afraid that might pose a problem.”
“How so?”
“Well, UBS Americas has this firm on retainer. That would be a conflict of interest. My apologies, but you’ll have to try someone else. Good luck to you.”
And he hung up. Fuck! “Dumbass,” I said to myself. “You just blew your cover to some dude who might just pick up the phone, call UBS, find out who you are, and blow the whistle on you!” Then I thought it over and calmed down. The fact that UBS had Williams & Connolly on retainer didn’t mean they were all drinking buddies; it just meant the bank could keep the firm in their back pocket in case they ever needed their advice or services, or a political “fix.”
But then I got careful and started digging for the rest of the law firms’ brags about who they represented. Sure enough, every major firm was retained by UBS! Those Swiss fuckers were smart; throw your money around and lock down every major law firm in Washington, just in case somebody like me wanted to take you on at some point. My last stab was at Covington & Burling, wh
ere Eric Holder was a partner. I knew he’d been Assistant US Attorney under Bill Clinton and had approved Clinton’s highly unorthodox pardon request for Marc Rich, the billionaire oil king residing in Zug, Switzerland, on the very last day of the Clinton administration. A guy like that who knew all the ins and outs of worldwide mega-financing might be just the type to take up my cause. Then I scrolled through Holder’s client list. Christ! UBS!
Okay, I was striking out big-time. This wasn’t going to be so easy. Then I remembered that I’d once met Bob Bennett, the legendary litigator from Skadden Arps, in Washington. Bennett had represented Casper Weinberger during the Iran–Contra scandal and Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky affair. This dude was a serious big dog, in both girth and reputation, and I had his personal number in my black book. I called him up, but this time I didn’t give him any details, just that I was looking for a kick-ass litigator.
“We’re pretty pricey, Brad,” he warned me.
“Well, I happen to be flush.”
He laughed. “In that case, why don’t you come on in for a sitdown. Are you in the States?”
“Not at the moment, but all I need is a few days’ notice.”
“I’ll switch you over to my secretary. Happy to have a chat.”
Things were looking up. Bob Bennett. Big gun! I called my travel agent, started packing, and didn’t tell a soul where I was going, not even my cleaning lady.
It was springtime 2006. The cherry blossoms had already fallen and were littering the Washington wading pools like bloody flamingo feathers when I landed at Reagan National Airport. The first of May had come and gone, which meant my gardening leave was up and I was no longer a UBS employee. I wasn’t shackled by a contract anymore, and any sense of loyalty to the firm was long dead. Usually in my previous trips to the States I’d stopped off in Boston to see the family, but this time I hadn’t even told Doug I was coming. No one I cared for could be forced to tell about things of which they knew nothing. For the time being, I was keeping the whole thing compartmentalized. I checked into the Four Seasons—for the first time in a long time on my own dime.
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