Word: swiss
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That would be the remains of the Franco-Swiss Winery, built in 1876. By the 1880s, the Franco-Swiss was pumping out more than 100,000 gallons of wine every year - and we're not talking run-of-the-mill plonk. "The quality of grapes produced by it is evidenced by the wines now in the cellar," wrote the St. Helena Star in 1882, "one of which - the Zinfandel Claret - we have rarely seen equaled." Most wine aficionados believe that the 1976 "Judgment of Paris" - the historic blind tasting by French critics who, to their own shock, preferred American entries...
Technology has helped fuel the trend. Medela, the Swiss breast-pump maker and industry leader, introduced its first electric-powered, vacuum-operated at-home breast pump in the U.S. in 1991. Five years later, the company launched the Pump in Style, a portable breast pump that comes in a fashionable bag that looks like a purse. Pumping mothers can also purchase breast-milk storage bags, nipple shields and power adapters for the car so they can pump on the go. A hands-free pumping bra made by a company called Easy Expressions lets busy mothers pump while checking e-mail...
...state-owned oil company Rosneft, whose chairman is Igor Sechin, a Deputy Prime Minister widely seen as Russia's most powerful official after his boss, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In 2008, Navalny filed a lawsuit to force Rosneft to reveal information about delivery contracts it had with an obscure Swiss oil trader called Gunvor, whose co-owner is an acquaintance of Putin's. A Moscow arbitration court rejected the suit, saying the company was not obligated by Russian law to reveal its dealings with Gunvor. Navalny says he will now file a suit against Rosneft at the European Court...
Over the years, the Swiss government has also skillfully doled out intelligence dollops to its American counterparts to keep the U.S. government from pressing too much. That may have been one reason recently retired Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau, who had butted against Swiss bank secrecy repeatedly since the 1960s, was not able to make many cases. The federal government is more earnest than ever, he says, but the resolve comes when the locus of tax evasion has already shifted to other havens. "Switzerland is not the No. 1 problem any more. The Caymans is the biggest problem," he says...
Still, recent reports demonstrate that bank secrecy is still very important for Switzerland and suggest how Swiss banks intend to maintain that secrecy for years to come. Credit Suisse, which took a net capital outflow hit of $5.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, reported it had about $100 billion of private, cross-border assets from politically sensitive or tax-sensitive countries. But when stress tested in simulations of widespread tax amnesties, it showed that $25 billion to $35 billion might flee. That sounds huge, but with some $800 billion under management, it's just a couple of quarters...