Swiss bank UBS has been fined £8 million in the UK after four of its senior employees were found misusing funds of customers, including two companies of Indian industrialist Anil Ambani. The penalty of close to Rs 50 crore by UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) comes at a time when Indian authorities are also probing alleged violation of norms in use of funds held in the UBS accounts of Reliance Energy and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL).

The penalty, imposed after its employees were found speculating in foreign currency and commodities with money illegally taken from customers' accounts, is part of a larger probe into the past management of Indian private banking accounts at UBS, British daily Financial Times reported here. However, there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Anil Ambani or his group companies, the report added.

According to the report, India’s Enforcement Directorate was investigating whether some “unspecified parties” violated foreign exchange transactions by misusing UBS accounts in London held by Anil Ambani group’s RNRL and Reliance Energy.

“The directorate is probing allegations that funds from overdrafts on the accounts were transferred through the accounts of a group of diamond dealers based in India and Belgium to a Mauritius fund owned by UBS, from where they were invested in Indian stocks through offshore derivatives," the newspaper report added. The report also quoted Anil Ambani group as saying that it had maintained the UBS London accounts “in full compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations.”

... contd.