Overview
- HSBC and the French financial prosecutor signed the settlement on Tuesday and presented it Thursday to the Paris judicial court for validation by President Peimane Ghaleh‑Marzban.
- La Croix reports the payment totals €267 million, and the bank acknowledged the facts during the hearing.
- The deal addresses aggravated tax fraud, with the court noting a systemic practice in HSBC’s French operations and citing 2015 internal documents about competitive gains.
- HSBC’s representative said the practice occurred in France from 2014 to 2019 and that controls, guidelines, and training were strengthened before the investigation began.
- HSBC is the second bank to accept such an agreement after Crédit Agricole CIB’s €88.24 million CJIP in September, in a probe of CumCum trades that let foreign investors avoid dividend withholding while banks collected commissions; HSBC had previously provisioned $0.3 billion for the case.