A US court handed down the first prison sentence to a US former client of UBS yesterday in a ruling that will unsettle the Swiss banking group's former offshore customers, reports Haig Simonian in Zurich.

Robert Moran, a US yacht broker, was given a two-month sentence for tax fraud by a court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The sentence was relatively lenient to reflect the co-operation of UK-born Mr Moran with the US authorities but it marked the first custodial term in deepening investigations into US clients of the bank.