U.S. Justice Dept says no plans to drop UBS case

By Kim Dixon and James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said it was not planning to drop its lawsuit seeking to force UBS (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) to disclose thousands of the Swiss bank's U.S. customers with secret accounts.

"There is no basis for the report in The New York Times," a Justice Department spokesman said in a statement Tuesday after the newspaper reported the case might be dropped, citing an unnamed U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The U.S. government sued UBS in February in U.S. District Court in Florida, seeking the names of 52,000 Americans suspected of using the bank to hide nearly $15 billion (9.1 billion pounds) in assets and evade U.S. taxes.

"While the department is always willing to consider settlement in any case, the suggestion that the department is planning to drop this suit is simply untrue. The department is continuing with the case against UBS and will file its brief asking the court to enforce the summons on June 30," spokesman Charles Miller said.

A U.S. filing on the matter is due June 30 and a hearing before a judge in Miami is set for July 13.

Several attorneys and others following the case were sceptical the United States would drop the case without major Swiss concessions, given the momentum against tax havens and coming deadlines for taxpayers to come forward voluntarily.

UBS and the Swiss government have argued that any exchange of confidential banking information should be handled through existing legal treaties rather than the courts.

"We hope it's true but we also have to look at what conditions are attached," a Swiss finance ministry spokesman said of the newspaper report.