Hervé Falciani

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced 11 legislative actions for the near future during his meeting with the cabinet of ministers on Wednesday.

The Athens prosecutor has an electronic file list with thousands of bank transactions of persons in the “new” Lagarde list after HSBC whistleblower Herve Falciani handed over details on thousands of allegedly suspicious international transactions to the Greek government.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras asked for the government to speed up its work while speaking on Wednesday at the Cabinet meeting, the last for 2015, and noted that “delays can’t be excused”.

11 government actions were announced that will be implemented over the coming period. These include:

* draft laws on social security issues

* the creation  of a development bank

No "Lagarde List" idleness on the part of French prosecutors this week, as the heir to the Nina Ricci perfume and fashion fortune was convicted of tax fraud in a Paris court after stashing millions of untaxed euros in a HSBC bank account.

Investigators launched a search on Feb. 18 of British banking giant HSBC's Geneva offices as part of a money laundering probe following allegations the bank helped clients evade millions of dollars in taxes, Swiss prosecutors said.
      

Former Prime Minister George Papandreou threatened legal action on Tuesday against anyone reproducing an extract from a soon-to-be published book by Herve Falciani, the former HSBC employee who leaked the details of thousands of depositors to authorities, including the Greeks included on the so-called Lagarde list.

The former HSBC employee who leaked sensational secret documents alleging the bank helped wealthy customers dodge millions of dollars in taxes warned Tuesday that the revelations are just the "tip of the iceberg."

French newspaper Le Monde published details on a scandalous report revealing a tax evasion scheme in the Swiss branch of HSBC on Sunday.

Bulgaria is also said to have been a part of the illegal dealings with EUR 380,8 M and 74 bank customers.

Politicians in Switzerland called Feb. 9 for an investigation into HSBC's Swiss unit, at the centre of a vast scandal over clients' tax evasion, money laundering and financing of terrorist groups.
      
Opening an investigation "would be the least that could be done," former Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey told the RTS public broadcaster.