Germany hints will buy secret Swiss bank data

Germany signalled Monday it would buy a disc said to contain the names of up to 1,500 Germans dodging the taxman by parking funds in Switzerland, in a blow to the Alpine country's cherished bank secrecy. A finance ministry spokesman told a regular government press briefing here Berlin would follow a 2008 precedent when the German secret service paid five million euros (seven million dollars) for data stolen from Liechtenstein. "A decision will be taken along the lines of that taken ..

. in the case of Liechtenstein," spokesman Michael Offer told reporters. He added that while there were several legal questions that still needed to be cleared up, the government hoped to take a decision rapidly on the issue. Earlier Monday, the Financial Times Deutschland reported that Herve Falciani, a 37-year-old IT specialist at HSBC private bank in Geneva, had approached authorities in Berlin demanding 2.

5 million euros for the data. The information on the disc could net the German taxman as much as 100 million euros in recovered taxes, the paper reported, without naming sources. The affair has prompted a moral dilemma in Germany, with several politicians saying Berlin should not pay for stolen data. Others argued that the tax revenue that could be recovered was worth the price.

Swiss President Doris Leuthard, however, warned foreign governments against using illegally acquired bank data to nab tax evaders, as no deals with criminals should be made under the rule of law. "Generally speaking we believe that it is difficult for law-abiding states to use illegal data," Leuthard said over the weekend.