Heir to Nina Ricci perfume fortune convicted as result of Swiss HSBC leak

The heir to the Nina Ricci perfume and fashion fortune has been handed a three-year sentence for tax fraud in the first high-profile conviction to come out of the leaking of client details from HSBC's Swiss private banking arm.

In a case that could set a precedent for the other French nationals on trial following the same leaks, a Paris court on Monday ordered Arlette Ricci to pay €1m in fines and serve three years in jail, two of them suspended.

The 73-year-old granddaughter of designer Nina Ricci also had two properties in Paris and Corsica confiscated, with the courts calling the tax evasion an "exceptional threat to public order and the republican pact".

Ricci was one of thousands of suspected tax evaders on the original list of accounts at HSBC Switzerland that was obtained by French authorities from a former HSBC employee, Herve Falciani, in 2010.

There are around 60 to 70 others potentially facing a criminal trial, according to prosecutors.

The heiress was accused of hiding $22m from the French taxman using accounts and offshore entities based largely in Panama. She denied the accusations, insisting the measures taken were legal.

Her lawyer Jean-Marc Fedida told reporters outside the Paris courtroom on Monday that Ricci might appeal the ruling in the coming months however, or ask the courts for less strict prison terms.

He complained that his client was being used to send a "warning" to others.

Margot Vignat, Arlette Ricci's 51-year-old daughter, was also convicted of tax evasion and given an eight-month suspended sentence. The court ordered Ricci to pay unspecified back taxes for the period 2007-2009.

The courts also accused Ricci of a "particularly determined willingness for more than 20 years" to hide money left to her by her father in Swiss bank accounts.

The conviction comes just days after French authorities placed the London-listed HSBC itself under formal criminal investigation over allegations that its Swiss private banking arm helped clients avoid taxes in 2006 and 2007.

HSBC, which was also forced to post bail of €1bn, said the move by the authorities was "without legal basis".

France started to investigate HSBC's Swiss private bank along with the thousands of individuals after data from more than 100,000 accounts was obtained in 2010.

This was subsequently shared with European tax authorities that have since collected hundreds of millions of pounds in tax, penalties and interest.

France recovered £188m worth, compared to £135m by the UK and £220m from Spain, according to authorities.

Earlier this year the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and dozens of other news groups including the Guardian and BBC published damaging details from this leak about how its Swiss private bank helped wealthy clients to evade taxes.

Since then problems have escalated for HSBC. The Geneva public prosecutor said this year it had launched a criminal inquiry into suspected "aggravated money laundering" by HSBC's Swiss private banking arm in response to "recent public revelations".

HSBC said at the time that it was continuing to co-operate with the Swiss authorities.

The bank is also being investigated over the tax-evasion allegations in other countries, including the US, France, Belgium and Argentina.

It has apologised for the alleged conduct of its Swiss unit, and said the events dated back eight years. It also says it has implemented "numerous initiatives designed to prevent its banking services being used to evade taxes or launder money".

The data dump earlier this year was also the first time that large numbers of individual clients had been named

There were a number of famous names on the list, including Formula One racing driver Fernando Alonso and Elle Macpherson, the model and entrepreneur. Neither have been accused of wrongdoing.

Nina Ricci was an Italian-born clothes designer who settled in France at the age of 12 in 1895. Her son Robert developed the company's perfume sideline and raised the firm's international profile.

Arlette Ricci, the daughter of Robert, inherited his fortune on his death in 1988. The fashion house is owned by Puig, the Spanish beauty and fashion group.

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