From: "Kobre & Kim LLP" <kobrekimIlp@,kobrekim.com> To: [email protected] Subject: Kobre & Kim Offshore Alert: U.S. Court Orders Disclosure of Offshore Bank Accounts Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 22:07:32 +0000 If you're having trouble viewing this email, you may see it online. Share this: a wol aro! aro! London Hong Kong Washington DC Miami Cayman Islands British Virgin Islands I r New York U.S. Court Orders Disclosure of Offshore Bank Accounts - A Sure Thing for the IRS? November 15, 2013 The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ("SDNY") has authorized the Internal Revenue Service (IRS") to issue summonses against five U.S. correspondent banks of the Bermuda- based The Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited and its affiliates (collectively, "Butterfield") in eight jurisdictions (including Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, among others). The summonses require the banks to produce records of unnamed and unknown account holders suspected of tax evasion. Potentially, such an order could have serious consequences for many "tax friendly" jurisdictions in which the U.S. banks or Butterfield have a presence: most notably, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands. But can the U.S. courts or the IRS be sure that the offshore courts will enforce their orders or summonses? The SDNY order follows close on the heels of a ruling of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands that held that the agreement of the Cayman Islands Tax Information Authority ("CITIA") to four requests of the Australian Tax Office ("ATO") pursuant to a Tax Information Sharing Agreement for documents and information relating to two entities, were illegally and incorrectly granted. The Grand Court ordered, therefore, that the documents sent to the ATO should not be used and should be returned to CITIA or destroyed and further, that they should not be divulged in proceedings or otherwise in Australia. The Australian Court has refused to uphol