Timeline: Troubles mount at Swiss bank UBS

UBS's $1.5 billion fine for rigging global benchmark interest rates is the latest blow for the Swiss bank which has already suffered hefty losses from past mistakes.

Here are some of the most significant problems to hit the bank since it took its current form in 1997:

1997 - A trading loss in equity derivatives of more than 600 million Swiss francs ($682 million) at the Union Bank of Switzerland forces it to accept a reverse takeover by rival Swiss Bank Corporation to form UBS.

1998 - UBS makes a 793 million franc pretax loss on exposure to hedge fund Long Term Capital Management.

2007 - UBS says it will close Dillon Read Capital Management, an internal hedge fund it set up in 2005, after a 150 million Swiss francs loss. It also makes a 4.2 billion Swiss franc loss in fixed income, currencies and commodities business and says it will cut 1,500 jobs.

2008 - UBS investment banking unit loses $50 billion on U.S. subprime mortgages and related bets, requiring a government bailout.

Feb 2009 - Agrees to pay $780 million and identify certain U.S. clients to settle criminal fraud charges that it helped rich Americans to evade taxes. Six months later, Switzerland says it will hand over details of about 4,450 bank accounts to U.S. authorities as part of the deal to settle the UBS tax case. It effectively ends a separate civil lawsuit by U.S. authorities that sought up to 52,000 account names.

July 2011 - UBS names former Bundesbank president Axel Weber as its next chairman. The following month it says it will cut 3,500 more jobs to save 2 billion Swiss francs in annual costs.

Sept 2011 - Bank stuns markets by unveiling a $2.3 billion rogue trading loss. London trader Kweku Adoboli was charged with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008. Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel resigns and is replaced by Sergio Ermotti.

Oct 2012 - Ermotti says he will cut 10,000 jobs and wind down the fixed-income business, as part of a far-reaching overhaul to return UBS to its private banking roots.

Nov 2012 - UBS's London rogue trader Adoboli is jailed for seven years for the fraud, the biggest in British history. Britain's financial regulator fines the bank 30 million pounds ($48.7 million).

(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit and Martin de Sa'Pinto; Editing by Erica Billingham)