Switzerland's parliament has approved the deal UBS signed with US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in August 2009, in which UBS agreed to provide the IRS with the names of 4,450 Americans who held offshore accounts in Switzerland.

UBS welcomed Swiss Parliamentary approval of the US-Swiss government agreement.

UBS said that it would continue to focus on its compliance with all obligations under its separate settlement agreements with the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (known as the Deferred Prosecution Agreement, or DPA, and Consent Order) and is confident that this would be achieved by the relevant deadlines in August 2010.

Earlier, the US Justice Department had accused UBS of helping wealthy American citizens evade taxes by creating secret bank accounts.

Some Swiss legislators challenged the deal, arguing that it compromised the country’s long tradition of bank secrecy. An earlier version of the legislation was rejected last week. The UBS-US deal landed in trouble after a Swiss court ruled against it in January this year.

The vote will enable US authorities to enter into similar pact with other Swiss banks too.