BERN, SWITZERLAND – Parents sharing custody of children no matter what their marital state moved a step closer to becoming Swiss law last week when the legal commission of the lower house voted with no opposition in favour of an upper house commission motion to change the law. Custody today is assigned to one or the other or in some cases both parents, in case of divorce.
The Federal Council gave the proposal its backing in November, but it needs the vote of parliament to become law. The lower house commission will now hear arguments about details to the recommended law, before the lower house votes.
It is as yet unclear when the modifications might become law, as they wend their way through the Swiss legislative system.
Changes to the law covering child support are expected to follow, but in a second phase.
Background story, GenevaLunch, 17 November 2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A Swiss woman from canton Valais has learned that the French man she divorced in November in fact died in July 2009, but she was never informed by Geneva authorities, the canton where the couple resided, reports Le Nouvelliste.
The two were married for three years, but parted company once she realized he was a spendthrift and fast talker. They had no children, and lost contact with each other. Three years after they separated, in July 2011, she decided to ask for a divorce but was unable to locate him.
She asked French authorities to help, to no avail, reports the Valais newspaper, which spoke to her lawyer. She then asked for a no contest divorce, where the state announces the news twice in order to allow the other partner to come forward. She was awarded the divorce in November – but it was only in December 2011 when she needed money to enlarge her boutique and she was asked for a legal document, the livret de famille from Geneva, that she learned to her shock that her partner had died in July 2009 and she is a widow.
Her lawyer is now seeking an explanation from Geneva and looking into the possibility of having the divorce annulled.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A Hong Kong couple’s split after eight years of marriage has resulted in ex-wife Florence Tsang Chiu-wing being awarded US$154 million (HK$1.2 billion) as part of the divorce settlement, after eight years of marriage. Her former husband, real estate tycoon Samathur Li Kin-kan, is the son of billionaire Samuel Tak Lee.
The judge ordered that an offer from the ex-husband and his father, of HK26m, be paid immediately, with the rest subject to interest that goes to Tsang if it is not paid within 90 days.
Their three-year-old daughter will have a fund of HK$26m, according to local paper The Standard.
The judge’s ruling may make Tsang the recipient of Asia’s largest ever divorce settlement, and it is well above such famous celebrity divorces as Donald and Ivana Trump or Paul McCartney and Heather Mills; Mills received $48 million from the former Beatle. Ed. note: McCartney says in a Times interview 3 December that he has been told his phone was hacked at the time he and Mills were getting a divorce.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch famously paid his ex-wife of 32 years $1.7 billion in 1998.
Tsang is a 38-year-old lawyer and the court ruled that the pair had contributed equally to the marriage. But with substantial gifts from his father, including one of US$50 million, Li’s estimated worth in March 2011 was HK$6.42 billion, while his wife’s was HK$79 million.
Hong Kong in recent legal cases has ruled in favour of women receiving larger shares of a couple’s joint fortune.
Tsang had asked for more than HK$6b, reportedly more than half of their shared assets, but she said after the ruling she was “delighted” with what is widely reported to be about 20 percent of the shared assets.
The settlement includes a $32 million home in Hong Kong, a $4 million town house in London, club memberships and HK$2.5 million to cover the cost of new cars and maintenance for a yacht, according to various media reports that cite the court document. The judge, John Saunders said she is entitled to maintain the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed.
Links to other sites: BBC, CNN, The Standard
Police number if you have information +41 21 644 82 31, or go to the nearest police station
Update 5, 12:00 6 February / Lausanne and Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two six-year-olds, Alessia and Livia, remain missing Saturday morning 5 February, and police are asking the public for any news that might help find them, following their father’s suicide shortly before midnight Thursday 3 February. The girls are perfectly trilingual in French, Italian and Swiss-German, Vaud police told GenevaLunch. The family is Swiss: correction – police now say that although the father was born in Canada he did not hold Canadian citizenship.
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Family allowances are designed to provide cash to help cover a child's costs
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerlandta has a system of family allowances in lieu of standard tax deductions for children, with monthly payments for dependents, and it is about to take a step towards greater transparency.
Starting in January 2011 the public will have access to new, nationally coordinated online records for family allowance payment.
The rationale is to ensure that those who should be receiving the monthly payments can see when money has been issued, while also making it more difficult to fraudulently collect more than one payment per child.
The federal, cantonal and communal governments in Switzerland have been gradually harmonizing digital records and registrations data bases, as this week’s decision to move from a once-a-decade to an annual census made clear.
The combined records will now indicate if someone is registered in more than one place to receive a family allowance. The children who should be benefiting directly from the payments do not always receive them, says Bern, noting that “it is not unusual for a parent who has the right to receive the payment not to pass it on to the parent who is living with the child, even though they are obliged to by law.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Monday 20 September is a holiday in much of Switzerland, the Jeûne Fédéral. GenevaLunch, based in Vaud, will be providing limited news coverage. Swiss weekend news highlights include:
SOCIETY – Four people are dead and 17 injured after a woman went on a shooting spree in Loerrach, Germany, near Basel, in a family dispute, setting off an explosion that provoked a fire. Media reports are contradictory, but it appears that the woman shot her former companion, their child and shot at others in a nearby hospital before she was shot dead by police in a shootout (Reuters).
SPORTS – Skier Didier Defago, on crutches Sunday 19 September after surgery for torn knee ligaments Friday, told journalists he has no intention of quitting. The 32-year-old Olympic downhill champion crashed last Wednesday during training in Zermatt, when the tips of his skis touched as he was going 110 kph.
PEOPLE – Russian billionnaire’s Geneva divorce battle now includes one of Florida’s most colourful pieces of property, reports Forbes magazine. Dmitri Rybolovlev, number 79 on Forbes’s list of the world’s wealthiest people, was sued for divorce in Geneva by his wife Elena in 2008. She has now asked the Swiss court to enforce a March court order, according to Forbes, to freeze an 18-bedroom, $48 million (assessed price) home she claims her fertilizer businessman husband is trying to hide behind business structures. The house was sold, reportedly to the couple, by Donald Trump who bought it from another magnate, Abe Gossman, who later went bankrupt.
POLITICS – Switzerland’s efforts to free two Swiss businessmen, Rachid Hamdani and Max Goeldi, have been shrouded in secrecy, but 19 September NZZ newspaper in Zurich reported that a Swiss soldier made a reconnaissance mission to Libya at one point. The newspaper bases its report on a confidential government memo it obtained. The two men were were imprisoned for 1.5 and 2 years respectively by Libya, with Hamdani freed in February 2010 and Goeldi in June 2010. The soldier reportedly traveled as a civilian, with a valid visa.
GENEVA RENTS – Geneva is regularly cited as one of the most expensive cities, with high rent playing a key role, but too much is too much, the president of the finance commission told the Tribune de Geneve, which reports that the justice department is paying CHF196,000 a month rent for a 2,226m2 building on the rue de l’Athenée in central Geneva. It houses, among others, the tribunal for rents and leases.
POLITICS – The US Justice Department announced Friday 17 September that one of the seven people charged with using UBS accounts for tax fraud had been sentenced to the longest prison term yet for such an offense. It also noted that he has been fined $4.4 million for not filing his FBAR forms, “an amount equal to 50 percent of the highest value of his UBS accounts as of December 31 for the years in which he failed to file FBAR.” The lengthy Justice Department news release notes: “Federico Hernandez, a Manhattan-based financial adviser, was sentenced today to 12 months’ imprisonment for hiding $8.8 million from the IRS by using sham companies to conceal his ownership of secret Swiss bank accounts held at UBS AG. Hernandez was one of seven US taxpayers charged on April 15, 2010, with filing false tax returns and related crimes for hiding Swiss bank accounts from the IRS. Hernandez pled guilty that same day to filing five false tax returns. In addition to the sentence of imprisonment, US District Judge Denny Chin imposed a sentence of six months’ home confinement. Hernandez also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $4.4 million. The sentence imposed on Hernandez is the longest term of imprisonment to date for hiding a UBS bank account from the IRS.
Swiss births up, new mothers older, divorces down
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Foreigners made up 21.98 percent of the Swiss resident population in 2009, figures released by the Federal Statistics Office show, a relatively stable percentage. Overall, the resident population of Switzerland continued to grow at a steady pace, to 7,783,000, with a foreign population of 1,711,000. The increase in the total population was due mainly to a positive migratory figure (immigration minus emigration), with immigration accounting for 81 percent of the total growth.
The birth rate rose by 2 percent, with both the Swiss and foreigners showing increases.
A 12-year-old Saudi Arabian girl, married a year ago to an 80-year-old man, is receiving help from the country’s Human Rights Commission in what could turn out to be a test case. Marriages of young girls to older men are not uncommon in some parts of the country and are legal, but a draft law under consideration would create a minimum of 16-18 years. The girl’s mother reportedly filed for her daughter to divorce but withdrew it a month ago without explanation.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Nyon man whose trial made headlines in September 2009 had his sentence for homicide reduced from life to 20 years, 25 January, by the Vaud cantonal tribunal. The court partially accepted his appeal which claimed reduced responsibility for his actions. He killed his wife in January 2008 by running over her as she used a crosswalk on a main street in Nyon, and in full view of observers he then dumped a pile of divorce papers over her as she lay badly injured in the road, before he drove off. She died a few hours later.
Links to other sites: 20 Minutes (Fre), 24 Heures (Fre)
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two shelters for abused men are opening this week in German-speaking Switzerland, one near Aarau and the other near Zurich. The shelters are not connected in any way but both are primarily designed for men who have lost their homes and families after separations, says swissinfo, which carries a feature on the two new shelters. It focuses on the little-discussed problem of violence towards men, at home.
Bern, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – The current mandatory period of two months for couples who are divorcing to reflect on ending their marriage, after their hearing by a judge, could well end for couples divorcing by mutual consent, on “friendly” terms. The judicial commission of the upper house of the Swiss parliament 16 June recommended that the period be abolished, based on its ineffectiveness. The judge would maintain the right to hold several hearings, however, if he senses tha one member of the couple is reluctant.
Rome, Italy (Genevalunch) – Veronica Lario, wife of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has confirmed that she will file for divorce. Lario made the decision after reading about Berlusconi offering a gold diamond necklace to an 18-year-old girl for her birthday, according to La Repubblica. “This really surprised me, because he never came to any 18th birthday parties for his children, despite being invited,” Lario told another Italian newspaper.
Robyn Gibson Monday filed for divorce from her husband, actor Mel Gibson, in a court in Los Angeles, California, citing irreconcilable differences. The two have been separated since shortly after his arrest in July 2006 for drunken driving. Robyn Gibson asked for joint custody of their 10-year-old child; six other children are all over age 18. Mel Gibson’s fortune, an estimated $900 million according to the Sydney Morning Herald, would be shared equally under California law, since the couple, married in 1981 before his acting career took off, hah no pre-nuptial agreement.
The BBC reports that Madonna’s publicist sent it an e-mail confirming news reported in a British tabloid: singer Madonna is paying £50 million, more or less, and it includes the house in Scotland, to film producer husband Guy Ritchie.
Singer Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie are divorcing after seven years of marriage. “A final settlement has not been agreed upon,” said their official statement, and a spokesperson noted that their relations remain cordial and they expect to settle on an agreement without going to court. BBC
