Word: switzerland
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Those included what was described as a confidential company report prepared by Barton outlining a system for making "special payments" out of Switzerland to British Leyland distributors and agents. Among the abuses mentioned was a practice of overbilling distributors so that they would appear to have little taxable profit; secret cash payments would then be "suitcased" to them-literally carried in satchels-or deposited in numbered bank accounts in Switzerland or Liechtenstein...
That move impeded the inflow of foreign funds, but only for a short while. Clever Swiss bankers soon devised a new technique whereby foreigners could continue to channel funds into Switzerland without incurring the interest penalties. The bankers simply accepted the deposits in fiduciary accounts. Under Switzerland's strict secrecy laws, the depositor would remain nameless, and the bankers would handle the funds in their own manner for the benefit of the depositor. Or so it was supposed to work...
...gesture of solidarity, the other members of the Big Three, the Swiss Bank Corporation and Union Bank of Switzerland, offered Crédit Suisse a $ 1.2 billion line of Crédit. Crédit Suisse refused the offer, explaining that it could easily absorb the Chiasso loss, and indeed that seems true. But the Chiasso affair and the other failures are raising severe questions about the efficiency, as well as the ethics of Swiss banking. Even some Swiss financiers are charging that Swiss bankers are vastly overrated and that only the constantly climbing Swiss franc makes them appear proficient...
Died. Harry Gordon Johnson, 53, Keynesian economist and professor at the University of Chicago and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Switzerland; after a long illness; in Geneva. An expert on international finance, Johnson frequently attacked the monetarist school of economists. He believed unemployment was a greater social problem than inflation and at times espoused both devaluation of the dollar and a guaranteed minimum income...
Died. Prince Xavier de Borbon y Parma, 87, patriarch of the Carlist family of pretenders to the Spanish throne; of a heart attack; in Chur, Switzerland. Distant cousins of King Juan Carlos, Xavier's family fought and lost two civil wars for the crown during the 19th century; the prince was heir to their romantic lost cause. Although the Roman Catholic Carlists supported Franco during the Spanish Civil War, the generalissimo refused to recognize their dynastic claims and subsequently expelled Prince Xavier from the country. In recent years, a family feud between Xavier's sons-Leftist Prince Hugo...