Word: swiss
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Still, many Swiss are bracing for a fight. In a front-page editorial on Aug. 1, Switzerland?s national holiday, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung went so far as to liken the E.U. information-exchange measures to the all-intrusive Big Brother state of George Orwell?s novel 1984. And Gregor Rutz, general secretary of the Swiss People?s Party, which is pushing the constitutional amendment, contends that banking secrecy "is not at all anachronistic. It?s a highly modern policy that is particularly important today at a time when we experience ever more state intervention in the private...
Switzerland's banking regulator has an effective weapon to enforce the many new regulations it has put in place over the past decade: public embarrassment. Take the case of former Nigerian President Sani Abacha. At the end of 1999, the Swiss government froze all assets identified as being linked to Abacha, about $660 million, and the Swiss Federal Banking Commission began a full-scale inquiry into how and why the money had come to Switzerland. The regulator?s report, issued in August 2000, was damning?to banks. While five institutions had behaved according to Swiss money-laundering laws and procedures...
Though the Nigerian dictator had also funneled some funds through Britain, the Financial Services Authority there published its Abacha findings without identifying the banks. But the Swiss named every institution it investigated and gave specific details in each case. It was all part of the policy of banking commission director Daniel Zuberbuehler that Swiss bankers dub naming and shaming. The commission's reasoning: "The fact in itself that significant funds from the entourage of the former Abacha regime were deposited in Swiss bank accounts is extremely regrettable and damaging to the reputation of Switzerland's financial sector...
...subsidiaries, Bank Hofmann and Bank Leu, Credit Suisse accepted funds totaling $214 million from two of Abacha's sons and failed to check if its customers were prominent political figures, the banking commission said. The other three major offenders were UBP Union Bancaire Privée and the Swiss subsidiaries of France's Crédit Agricole Indosuez and Germany?s M.M. Warburg...
...time Switzerland's largest bank, UBS, was given a pat on the back for its compliance with Swiss regulations. However, in February of this year, UBS made a startling admission. As part of its ongoing internal control procedures, the bank said, it had stumbled upon a business relationship with Abacha's sons that dated back to 1996. A British citizen resident in London, who was a long-standing and reputable client, introduced to the bank a company in which he and two Nigerian partners held interests. The British citizen, who wasn't further identified, insisted the partners had no political...