LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss high court for criminal cases has told a Fribourg cantonal court it must reopen the case against a police officer by a French youth whose brother died from a bullet while the two were fleeing the scene of a crime in Fribourg in April 2010. The cantonal court had ruled the case closed, but the Lausanne federal court says the decision was premature and the case must be heard.
The issue is whether the policeman was acting in self-defense or if he shot to kill illegally. The officer had just arrived on the scene and was helping to set up a roadblock to stop the brothers, who had a stolen car.
The two brothers, who lived in France, were 18 at the time of the crime.
Background story, GenevaLunch, April 2010
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – UK and Swiss banking regulators are reported by the Wall St Journal to be planning to fine Swiss bank UBS for shortcomings in supervising risky trades. The newspaper cites “people close to the situation”, noting that regulators from the two countries will complete their investigations by mid-February into the $23. billion loss by trade Kweku Adoboli.
The former UBS employee pleaded not guilty Monday morning 30 January in London to charges of fraud.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Rudolf Elmer, ex-Bank Julius Baer manager who brought charges against his former employer for meancing him, dropped them Thursday 17 November when he appeared in court to appeal his earlier sentencing on a number of charges. A Zurich court ruled against his appeal but this was later overturned by the Swiss federal high court.
ATS Swiss news agency says he would not say if he was offered money by his ex-employer to drop the charges, and that he continued to say the bank had menaced him.
He was given a suspended sentence in January 2011 for threats and theft related to banking data he stole several years ago. He appealed the fines and suspended sentence he was given, and the Swiss federal court ordered the Zurich court to accept his appeal. Today, in court, AST reports, he became bogged down in contradictory statements about emails and faxes related to the theft.
Shortly after being released in January he was re-arrested on charges of breaking Switzerland’s bank secrecy laws, related to sharing data with WikiLeaks. The arrest followed an appearance in public with Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, to talk about sharing the documents.
Elmer still faces these charges.
DSK release, May 2011 (cartoon ©2011 Patrick Chappatte, Globe Cartoon)
Update 23:45 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The rape charges in criminal court against former IMF (International Monetary Fund) head Dominique Strauss-Kahn have been dropped: an appeals court refused to appoint a special prosecutor, allowing a judge’s decision to drop charges, earlier in the day 23 August, to go ahead.
The prosecution had requested that charges be dropped on the basis that they were “no longer convinced of the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”.
The prosecution said in its filing in New York that there was evidence that Strauss-Kahn and Nafissatou Diallo, a maid at a New York hotel, had engaged in a sexual encounter, but whether it was consensual or rape was less clear.
The prosecution noted that Diallo, who has allowed her name to be used, had not been entirely truthful in tax documents and in her application for asylum from Guinea, and the case with a jury would rest on their ability to believe she was telling the truth.
Her lawyers argued that the prosecution was ignoring strong physical evidence.
Strauss-Kahn, who has been under house arrest since soon after his arrest in May, will be free to return to France. He was considered a leading candidate from the Left for the French presidential elections in 2012. Le Monde late Tuesday, in reporting on the charges being dropped, noted that his candidature has been “definitively compromised”, although the New York Times says that his political career is far from over.
Diallo has filed a civil case against the former IMF head, but since these are not criminal charges they will not keep him in New York. France does not allow its own citizens to be extradited, so once on French soil DSK, as he has become known since the case started, would not be obliged to return to the US.
Strauss-Kahn motion to dismiss, NY court (pdf)
Commentaries:
Guardian, “DSK walks, but Nicolas Sarkozy will run”
Le Monde (Fre), “Malgre le non-lieu, une affaire ‘impitoyable’”
New York Times, “End of Rape Case Brings the French Relief, and Political Questions”
EPFL in Lausanne: foreigners pay just a bit more than Swiss students in fees
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss universities have the legal right to limit the number of foreign students in specific disciplines and they may charge higher fees than those for Swiss students, to reflect the real cost of providing the education.
A report to this effect was delivered to the Swiss Universities Rectors Conference (Crus) earlier in the year, Matthias Stauffacher, the group’s director general, confirmed Tuesday 2 August.
Swiss university students pay annual fees that are well below the cost of their education, between CHF500 and 1,300 a semester for basic fees for undergraduate students. St Gallen, which is the only Swiss university that currently has a quota for foreign students, 25 percent (it offers several programmes in English), charges foreign students less than CHF300 a year extra for foreign students.
Crus brochure, “Studying in Switzerland, Universities 2011″
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Julian Assange, publisher of WikiLeaks, will remain under house arrest in the UK for the time being, following British High Court hearing in London into his case which adjourned Wednesday with no decision. The judges have not said when they will decide whether or not he may be extradited to Sweden. A lower court earlier ruled that he could be sent to Sweden as part of an investigation there into accusations of rape.
Assange’s attorneys Monday revived his recently quiet public profile as well as earlier conspiracy debates, through comments on Twitter about parallels between his case and that of former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Links to other sites: CNN, Guardian, Le Monde (Fr)
PARIS, FRANCE – Dominique Strauss Kahn (DSK) faces another legal hurdle, with French writer Tristane Banon saying through her lawyers that she will be filing charges of attempted rape against him Tuesday 5 July. Banon came forward in mid-May saying that she had been attacked by DSK in 2003 when the now-32-year-old was a young reporter interviewing him.
The statute of limitations for attempted rape is 10 years in France, according to Figaro newspaper.
DSK’s lawyers in Paris responded by saying he had been informed and would be filing charges against Banon for defamation. They are calling her account of events “imaginary” while her lawyers say her case is very solid.
French media are speculating if the writer’s court action is politically motivated, given the possibility that DSK may still run for president. He was considered the most likely candidate to run against Nicolas Sarkozy until he was arrested in New York on suspicion of sexually assaulting a maid in a hotel room.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The groundwork is being laid in the media by the New York Times for the sexual assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn to be dropped, with the newspaper reporting 30 June that the prosecuting attorney no longer believes the victim’s story. DSK, as he is widely known in France, will appear in a New York court for a bail modification hearing today, 1 July.
“The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials”, the newspaper front-page article says. The prosecutors, it adds, “now do not believe much of what the accuser has told them about the circumstances or about herself”, although the source appears to be a law enforcement official rather than the prosecutors. The official says bluntly that the woman has lied on several occasions, in particular about her asylum application and “possible links to people involved in criminal activities, including drug dealing and money laundering”.
The article then speculates about the possible implications for Strauss-Kahn being freed and charges being dropped.
ABC News in the US says it has confirmed the information published by the New York Times.
The New York paper mentions that police found DNA evidence of sexual relations between the former IMF boss and the woman, a maid in the hotel where he was staying.
The possibility that the maid had lied has been part of media coverage since the story broke in May, with Business Insider 26 May pointing to media leaks as part of the defense and prosecution games that have been played in relation to the case.
Zurich's Bahnhof "guardian angel", by Niki de Saint Phalle, might need to help pad travellers pocketbooks in 2012
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Hospital as well as some train fares in Switzerland are expected to rise significantly in 2012, based on preliminary remarks by a Swiss health organization and the CFF rail company Tuesday 3 May.
Santésuisse 3 May announced that it expects to see hospital costs rise by 1.6 percent overall in Switzerland, but with some significant differences around the country: Genevans can expect to pay 4.5 percent more and residents of canton Vaud 1.5 percent more, while Ticino is the rare canton that can expect to see hospitalization cost considerably less, down 7.6 percent.
Cantons will share costs
The change is due to an agreement just reached by the cantons and that goes into effect in January 2012. Hospitals have until now charged based on the cost of services delivered, but they will in future charge a fixed amount for a service, based on calculations of overall services provided throughout the country, with the cost shared and spread by the cantons. The new agreement will share hospitalization charges more equitably across the country.
Track 7, first class, year-round subscription and commune tickets to go up
A member of the Goldman Sachs board from 2006-2010, Rajat Gupta, has been charged with insider trading in the US, charges his lawyer denies, as he did in May 2010 when Gupta’s name surfaced as a target in investigations into the Galleon Group. The US Securities and Exchange Commission claims Gupta leaked details to Raj Rajaratnam, a friend and founder of the Galleon Group, about Warren Buffett’s $5bn investment in Goldman in 2008, money that kept Goldman from being pulled under during the global financial crisis. He is also accused of leaking information about the financial performance of Goldman as well as US multinational P&G.
Gupta resigned from the P&G board Tuesday, once the charges were announced.
He has been something of a hero in the Indian business world, as the first CEO of McKinsey, the consulting group, who was not born American. He headed the company for 10 years. Gupta is Indian and American.
Links to other sites: BBC, Economic Times of India, Financial Times, Wall St Journal
A judge in the UK today begins hearing the case for extraditing Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, to Sweden. The hearing is expected to end Tuesday, but with judgement reserved until later in February. Assange’s lawyers argue that he should not be extradited because Sweden wants him for questioning in relationship to two charges of sexual misconduct, saying he has not been charged with a crime.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, AP/Chicago Tribune, Reuters
PostFinance sued by Pirate Party
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum, says he would like to, and should, invite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the WEF meeting in Davos in January.
SonntagsZietung published an interview with Schwab Sunday 19 December. Assange cannot leave the United Kingdom under the terms of bail granted by a judge there, Schwab pointed out, so unless Sweden completes its investigation of charges of sexual misconduct brought against Assange and releases him, it’s unlikely he will make an appearance at the Swiss resort.
Schwab told the newspaper that the focus this year at Davos, which every winter pulls in some of the world’s top political and business leaders, will be on lessons learned from the financial crisis, but that WikiLeaks will clearly be on the agenda. “WikiLeaks is the expression of a new reality,” he told the Swiss-German newspaper.
“The balance privacy and transparency has changed fundamentally, and governments, businesses and decision-makers will have to accept that from now on, they are living in glass rooms.”
Also over the weekend, the Swiss Pirate Party brought charges against PostFinance, with Swiss federal authorities, report several Swiss media. PostFinance is the banking arm of Swiss Post. Its web site was attacked in revenge for closing an account opened by Julian Assange. The Pirate Party in early December distanced itself from the attacks, which were carried out by a group of hacker activists called Anonymous.
The party, which supports Assange, published a paper 11 December saying it believed the post office bank had acted illegally by publishing Assange’s bank account information, under Swiss banking secrecy and privacy protection laws. PostFinance noted when it published the information that Assange himself had already made this information widely available to the public and that he in fact publicized it.
Pay up or expect steep fines on Swiss public transport, starting mid-2011
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Travelling on Swiss public transport systems starting in June 2011 without a ticket will cost you CHF100 in fines and tickets, an increase of CHF20, the Public Transport Union announced Wednesday 10 November. And travellers who have tickets but “inappropriate” ones, such as second class tickets when travelling in first class, will be fined CHF75, up from CHF60.
The increases are the result of a September Swiss high court decision that backed a woman’s objection to being charged more for having a wrong-class ticket than someone without a ticket. The public transport group accordingly reduced the fines for inappropriate tickets from CHF80 to 60.
With the new fines, wrong-class travellers who are caught will still be charged less than those who are trying to get a free ride or who for other reasons get on trams, trains and buses without a ticket.
Paris, France (GenevaLunch) – France’s autoroute companies will, for the first time in recent years, coordinate the announcement of changes in toll booth charges that will go into effect in February. The new rates for motorway driving in France will be announced 27 January. In early 2009 drivers of light vehicles saw their rates increase by 3 percent, while they went down 13 percent for trucks. This year rates are expected to rise in order to finance major roadworks, according to an official cited by newspaper Le Figaro.
In related news: Swiss and French drivers who have ignored parking fees when they crossed the border could find it is harder to duck paying, with the two countries’ agreement to help each other in this area going into effect this month.
Update 18 August 12:10 Zurich, Switzerland and Los Angeles, California, USA (GenevaLunch) - John McCarthy of Pasadena, California last week became the fourth American citizen to turn himself into the US Justice Department as a client who had a secret offshore UBS bank account, set up to hide his real identity and to defraud the IRS tax authorities. His name was one of those in the group of clients whose account information was given by UBS to the IRS in February 2009. The details of the case where he is expected to plead guilty when he appears in court 14 September were published by the US Department of Justice’s California division.
According to the press release “McCarthy admitted that, with the assistance of UBS representatives and his Swiss lawyer, he directed the investment activities and transfers of funds into and out of the COGS UBS Swiss bank account, as well as from other UBS Swiss accounts he controlled.
Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison in New York, USA. The judge called his crimes “extraordinarily evil” and handed him the sentence asked for by prosecutors, for fraud charges that grew out of his massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff pleaded guilty to the charges: securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, investment adviser fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the SEC, theft from an employee benefit plan. Bloomberg, New York Times
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The upper house of Parliament this week has voted to back the government’s proposals to improve the financial health of the federal unemployment system. The national fund is currently CHF5 billion in the hole and is likely to grow to a CHF6.3b deficit by 2010. If the lower house and a possible public referendum also back the measure, as they are expected to do, workers will see several changes, starting with higher deductions in 2011 and a longer paying-in period before they can claim full benefits.
The proposal as it stands today would increase workers’ payments from 2.0 percent of their salary to 2.2 percent. As a temporary measure to reduce the fund’s debt, this would be increased to 2.3 percent for several years and employees earning CHF126-315,000 would pay an additional 0.1 percent for some years as a “solidarity” measure.
