Word: switzerland
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Down at street level, the view is less confident. "Banking secrecy is an old tradition in Switzerland, but in the end Switzerland will have to adapt itself to the E.U.," says Otto Boesch, a retiree from St. Gallen, checking his stocks on a big board outside the Bahnhofstrasse headquarters of UBS. Concurs Marc Weber, who works nearby in a bank he won?t name: "Switzerland can?t isolate itself. We can?t survive as a fortified island in today?s world. It?s just a question of time...
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...
...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...
...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...