At trial, Franco-Swiss banker Paul Hottinguer denies trying to evade taxes

Paul Hottinguer, the 84-year-old heir to a Franco-Swiss banking dynasty, told a Paris criminal court that he never sought to escape French taxation. He said he paid more than €7 million in taxes in Switzerland because that was where he resided.

The former banker is facing trial for aggravated tax fraud and money laundering. The case concerns the years from 2011 to 2021, when the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office alleges that he falsely declared himself resident in Switzerland.

According to prosecutors, the alleged arrangement used an offshore financial circuit to avoid French tax. Hottinguer rejects that account and maintains that his tax obligations belonged in Switzerland.

The court president spent considerable time listing the days Hottinguer was present in France. That record of physical presence forms part of the dispute over where the banker was genuinely domiciled during the period under examination.