FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida - A former client of international financial management firm UBS pled guilty to filing false tax returns and hiding assets in offshore accounts.

In Florida yesterday, Paul Zabczuk admitted to a Florida court that he failed to tell the US government about $529,000 in undeclared funds.

Zabczuk, an oil drilling consultant, is free on a $1 million bond and faces a prison sentence of up to three years. According to the government he asked foreign clients to pay him in offshore bank accounts in The Bahamas and Switzerland and wired funds to China.

Today, UBS chairman Kaspar Villiger told the Associated Press the company remains "very concerned" about its unresolved tax evasion problems in the United States.

The U.S. and Swiss governments agreed last year for UBS to divulge the names of 4,450 American customers suspected of large-scale tax crimes. But the deal has been held up by the Swiss courts, which say it is incompatible with the Alpine republic's strict banking secrecy laws, referring it back to the Swiss parliament for a vote in June.

The Swiss government and UBS are urging lawmakers to pass the agreement, warning that other banks with wealthy American clients may be targeted.

"UBS triggered this problem itself and we are deeply sorry," said Villiger. "But it is now much more than UBS which is at stake."

Villiger dismissed calls for the bank to unilaterally hand over client data to U.S. authorities, in violation of Swiss law. While some lawmakers have said laws shouldn't be tailored to solve the problems of any one bank, Villiger said government inaction on the issue would be a "disastrous sign for the entire financial center, which would lose even more credibility."

UBS has been trying to regain investor and client confidence and has issued repeated apologies.

At one point the board even debated changing the bank's name, Villiger said.

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