romeo cerutti in cerutti switzerland. mr. hans-ulrich-meister .co head of the private banking asset management of credit suisse in switzerland and mr. robert shafir of private banking asset both management of the credit suisse ag in new york. we appreciate you being here this morning and look forward testimony pursuant to rule number 60 witnesses to testify before the committee are required to be sworn in and at this time i would ask you to stand and raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you will get before the committee will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? we will be using a timing system for the witnesses today. be aware that approximately one minute before the red light comes on you will see the light change from green to yellow giving you an opportunity to conclude your remarks. while the written testimony is printed in the record in its entirety we ask that you limit your oral testimony to 15 minutes and if you need additional time beyond that, i'm sure we can find a way to provi

credit suisse general counsel romeo cerutti said swiss law prevents his firm fromç disclosing more informationw a testy reaction from chairman carl levin of michigan. >> article 47 of the swiss banking law, it's the banking secrecy provision, prohibits us from furnishing any client names to anyone within switzerland or outside of switzerland. and this is subject to imprisonment and fines. >> you come to this country and you're governed by this country's laws, by almost universally accepted law.ç and yet you hide behind the swiss law even though you're operating here. and that's just simply not going to cut it. >> woodruff: the report details what credit suisse allegedly did to help americans evade taxes and it also criticized the u.s. justice department for its role in prosecuting all this. gina chon of the financial times has been covering this story and was at today's hearing. >> welcome to the newshour, gina chon, first what did this report say these banks had been doing. >> well, it was a pretty scathing report it went into great detail about what senator leff inl-- levin called cloak-and