GENEVA (AP) A top Swiss banking official said yesterday that relations with the United States were improving after the Internal Revenue Service ended its legal action against Swiss bank UBS AG.

“I’m very confident that the relations are very good,” said Claude-Alain Margelisch, CEO of the Swiss Bankers Association.

His assessment comes only two weeks after the Internal Revenue Service ended the legal action that had forced UBS to disclose thousands of account holders suspected of cheating on US taxes a landmark case that breached centuries-old Swiss banking secrecy laws.

Margelisch referred to the IRS’s crackdown as “a difficult time” for Swiss bankers but said that a US-Swiss agreement pointed a way to move beyond it.

“Now it seems that between the UBS and the IRS and the Treasury (Department) it will raise no more problems, meaning that everybody has done (their) work,” Margelisch told a press conference.

In mid-November, the IRS withdrew a Miami federal court summons that had sought the identities of suspected US tax dodgers at UBS.

That occurred after the IRS had received more than 4,000 names as required under an August 2009 agreement that also included the Swiss government. These people can now expect what U.S. authorities have described as a “full-blown audit” and many probably will be prosecuted.

The bilateral agreement calls for the disclosure of 4,450 names in total, and Swiss authorities have said that more identities will be turned over in coming months after the conclusion of an appeal in Switzerland’s Administrative Court.

The IRS said it aims to obtain about 7,500 once-secret accounts from UBS for scrutiny, including those provided under a 2009 deferred-prosecution agreement in which the bank paid a $780 million fine.

The prosecution was dismissed earlier this year after UBS met all of its terms.

Meanwhile, the IRS has since been scouring the disclosed accounts for leads to other possible tax offenders.