The Paris Court of Appeal refused on Monday to transmit to the Constitutional Council a priority question of constitutionality (QPC). It was filed by the defense of the Swiss bank UBS, after its appeal trial in March.

With the rejection of this QPC, the case can take its course without change and the Paris Court of Appeal will render its judgment on September 27. Accused of illegal bank canvassing and aggravated laundering of tax fraud in France, UBS was sentenced to a record and unprecedented fine of €3.7 billion at first instance in February 2019. Its French subsidiary was fined 15 million euros for complicity. The two institutions had also been ordered to pay 800 million euros in damages to the State, which had filed a civil action.

On appeal, last March, the public prosecutor demanded a fine of at least two billion euros. The lawyers of the French tax authorities have meanwhile asked for the payment of a billion euros in damages. UBS, which has set aside 450 million euros for this case, defends itself by arguing that the investigators have never provided proof that the bank had systematically canvassed French clients to offer them to escape the Directorate General of Public Finance (DGFiP).