M.H.

Appellant M.H. is the target of a grand jury investigation seeking to determine whether he used secret Swiss bank accounts to evade paying federal taxes. The district court granted a motion to compel M.H.’s compliance with a grand jury subpoena duces tecum demanding that he produce certain records related to his foreign bank accounts. The court declined to condition its order compelling production upon a grant of limited immunity and, pursuant to the recalcitrant witness statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1826 , held M.H. in contempt for refusing to comply. M.H. appealed.

The foreign bank account information the Government seeks is information M.H. is required to keep and maintain for inspection under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (BSA), 31 U.S.C. § 5311 , and its related regulations. M.H. argues that if he provides the sought-after information, he risks incriminating himself in violation of his Fifth Amendment privilege. He asserts that the information he is being asked to produce might conflict with other information M.H. has previously reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Production might reveal, for instance, that he has accounts he has not reported or that the…