French prosecutors alleged that between 2014 and 2019, the bank’s French arm engaged in intra-group trading transactions that were designed to benefit from a tax exemption, and that this amounted to “aggravated tax fraud,” The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday (Jan. 8).
HSBC told the WSJ: “The settlement with the [French court] recognized the bank’s cooperation with the investigation, as well as the corrective measures it took to address the historic issues. We continue to remain focused on serving our customers.”
The Financial Times reported Thursday that HSBC’s payment will include fines and back taxes, and that the bank already paid 35 million euros (about $40.8 million) in interest payments and other sanctions.
The FT reported that French investigators have been looking into whether other banks avoided taxes in this way, that France’s economic minister said in 2025 that the country may have lost as much as 4.5 billion euros (about $5.3 billion) in revenue because of these schemes, and that Crédit Agricole was another one of the banks included in the probe.
Reuters reported in September 2025 that Crédit Agricole agreed to pay 88.2 million euros (about $103.4 million at the time) to settle a French investigation into whether the bank used dividend-arbitrage trades to avoid withholding taxes.
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The report said that in France, these kinds of settlements allow companies to avoid trials by paying a fine and committing to compliance measures without admitting guilt or receiving a criminal conviction.
Crédit Agricole said in a Sept. 8, 2025, press release that it cooperated with the investigation and that it had already implemented internal rules to control the types of transactions that were included in the French prosecutor’s probe.
“The investigation showed, first of all, that Crédit Agricole CIB had not put in place any system or policy intended knowingly to encourage its foreign clients to engage in securities lending and borrowing or securities derivatives transactions for the purpose of tax evasion,” the bank said in the press release.
