NEW YORK — The U.S. Justice Department called Switzerland's largest private bank a fugitive from justice on Friday after it didn't send any representatives to a court hearing in New York, where it has been charged with conspiring with American clients to hide $1.2 billion from the IRS.

Wegelin & Co. is accused of helping at least 100 U.S. clients conceal huge sums of money from the IRS in overseas accounts.

Federal prosecutors said the bank recruited U.S. customers who were concerned about possible prosecution for tax violations at home, including some that had already pulled money out of other Swiss banks because of growing pressure from U.S. law enforcement.

Three of the bank's client advisers were indicted in January. The bank was added as a defendant in the case Feb. 2

U.S. officials, however, have yet to find a way to move the case forward. The three Wegelin advisers charged in the case, Michael Berlinka, Urs Frei and Roger Keller, have not been arrested and the Justice Department has decided that any attempt to extradite them from Switzerland is unlikely to succeed.

The bank was summoned to appear before a federal judge in New York on Friday at 3 p.m., but neither a bank officer nor a lawyer showed.

The bank said it had not been properly served with the criminal summons and was therefore under no obligation to appear in court.

It is unclear what prosecutors can do next. Wegelin doesn't have an office in the U.S.

Federal authorities have frozen $16 million that the bank had in a correspondent account in the U.S., but that amount is tiny compared to the large sums involved.