Much loved but more expensive than necessary, to feed, in France
PARIS, FRANCE – Vevey-based Nestlé is one of three dog and cat food manufacturers being fined by France’s competition watchdog, with the Swiss multinational hit by a €19.1 billion fine out of a total of more than €35b in fines imposed.
The decision was made public Tuesday 20 March and involves three companies’ brands: Nestlé Purina Petcare France SAS (Groupe Nestlé SA), Royal Canin SAS (Groupe Mars Incorporated) and Hill’s Pet Nutrition SNC (Groupe Colgate Palmolive Company).
France has 10 million dogs and 8 million cats.
They are accused of imposing restrictions from 2004 to 2008 on wholesalers who then sold high-end dry dog and cat food to the specialty retail market, which includes animal shops, garden centres, farm stores, di-it-yourself stores, pet shops and veterinarians.
The three companies had more than 70 percent of the dry pet food market, which accounts for 70 percent of the overall pet food market.
The companies not only put in place a system that resulted in a form of price fixing, but the wholesaler-distributors were given fixed territories that also reduced competition, leading to higher prices, says the competition commission.
The three companies did not contest the facts, according to the French Autorité de la concurrence.
Swiss road tax: stickers show you've paid
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland’s annual road tax will remain the same price, CHF40, but starting in 2012 the fine for not displaying it will double, to CHF200. Switzerland does not charge road tolls for its autoroutes, but the maintenance costs are covered in part by the road tax.
A sticker, which must be displayed correctly on all vehicles, shows that the tax for the current year is paid. The sticker must be stuck on and can’t be switched between vehicles.
The sticks is valid for all travel during a year, whether you use the autoroutes daily or just once, when passing through the country, in which case it functions more like a toll.
CFF rail ticket machines could suddenly become more popular 1 December as the penalty for boarding a train without a ticket jumps to CHF90
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The luxury of hopping on a Swiss train without a ticket, knowing that you can either buy one from the train conductor for CHF10 extra or hoping he won’t reach you before you get off, will end in December. The change will accompany the new 2011 rail timetable and prices when these go into effect 1 December, a CFF spokesperson has told a Swiss news agency.
The Geneva-Nyon and Fribourg-Bern stretches are two that are mentioned as particularly causing problems because the trains are often packed, especially at rush hour, and the distances relatively short. Conductors are unable to check all the tickets if they have to stop and sell some, which has encouraged some travellers to take the risk of riding without a ticket.
Jean-Louis Scherz, spokesperson for the CFF, told AFP news agency that the policy will change because it’s too costly to continue selling tickets on the train when there are now several other options for travellers.
People with tickets are unfairly carrying the cost of people who don’t pay, he says, a burden that is estimated at several million francs.
The new system will apply to regional and longer distance trains, with some tourist transport groups such as the Postal Cars keeping the option to determine how they sell tickets.
Anyone getting on a train without a ticket will be subject to an additional charge of CHF90, with repeat offenders being charged CHF130, in addition to the price of the ticket. If you don’t have the money on you to pay the fine immediately you’ll be charged an extra CHF30 in administrative fees.
The company estimates that two in 1,000 travellers currently buy their tickets on the train.
The CFF is reportedly working on details for a handful of exceptions, most likely including foreign travellers in transit in Switzerland who are unable to buy a ticket for their connecting train, according to TSR, Swiss public television.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Bicycle tax time is rolling around, in Switzerland: the 2011 license must be displayed on all bikes by 31 May.
The annual CHF5 “tax”, which is actually a form of insurance, must be stuck onto the bike to be valid, although it can be transferred from one bicycle to another. It provides CHF2 million third-party (responsabilité civile, or RC) damage coverage.
A CHF40 fine can be levied on anyone, including children, who ride a bicycle that is not covered by RC insurance in Switzerland.
The stickers can be bought at post offices, train stations, bicycle and other shops.
Rangers FC was quick to get the bad news to fans
Update 22:00 Geneva / Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Scotland’s Rangers football club has been handed a 40,000 euros fine and its fans have been banned from the team’s next away match, by the European football union, Nyon-based Uefa, Thursday 28 April. The Uefa decision noted that the fine and sanctions come “as a result of the discriminatory behaviour of fans in a tie against PSV Eindhoven.”
The team expressed bitter disappointment at the decision, after putting forth the case that it has made clear it does not support and tries to weed out fans who sing “sectarian songs” at matches, such as the Glasgow anti-Catholic and anti-Irish version of “Billy Boy”. The club has argued that it is being singled out unfairly, since the practice of racist or otherwise discriminatory singing is widespread, but to little avail.
Martin Bain, chief executive, said in a statement, “To be clear, we condemn sectarianism and there is no doubt the mindless behaviour of an element of our support has exposed the Club to a very serious situation. The people who engage in this type of behaviour are damaging the Club they claim to support. It is abundantly clear from this decision that if there is any sectarian singing at future matches the suspended bans will take effect. Those fans who engage in such activity need to take that message on board.”
A second away-game ban was issued, but suspended, as was a home game fans ban with additional 40,000 euros fine, which now hang over the club.
Links to other sites: Guardian, The Scotsman, Sky Sports, Rangers site
Theft and threats out of the way, Zurich turns to bank secrecy law violations to jail former banker
Rudolf Elmer at a press conference in Zurich 19 January
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Rudolf Elmer was arrested again in Zurich Wednesday evening, shortly after being handed a suspended sentence. Elmer had a quick court hearing and sentencing Wednesday 19 January, for threatening his former employer, Bank Julius Baer, and for stealing data from the bank in 2002, which he then gave to WikiLeaks and others in 2008. He was widely reported to have been charged with breaking bank secrecy laws, not in fact the case.
Zurich police say he was taken into custody again late Wednesday on suspicion of breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws after he publicly handed two disks with data to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London, last weekend, stating that they contained bank data. Elmer also said publicly, during his day in court Wednesday, that he had handed over to bank data to tax authorities and media groups.
NZZ reports that the cantonal prosecutor has until Friday evening to decide if Elmer will be charged.
Privacy protection is the umbrella for bank secrecy, professional secrecy laws
Swiss bank secrecy laws are part of a group of privacy protection that also cover data protection in the broader sense, limiting, for example, Google Street View’s right to film and sending to jail, as well as professional secrecy laws. The long-running nuclear proliferation Tinner case in Switzerland has involved questions about professional secrecy being violated.
Elmer might be charged under Article 47 of the civil code which requires bankers to protect the confidentiality of clients’ data. It also allows for a subsequent charge of violating professional secrecy:
Decision
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Bank UBS took too long to in July to give shareholders information about looming losses in 2007, the Swiss Stock Exchange sanctions commission has ruled. Friday 14 January it handed the bank a CHF100,000 fine, the end of a three-year investigation. The bank was bailed out by the Swiss government when it posted large losses in 2008.
UBS shareholders in May 2010 refused to give the bank’s directors a requested discharge of responsibilities for 2007, highly unusual for a Swiss company.
Timing of loss announcements broke the rules, says sanctions commission
“In accordance with stock exchange rules, an issuer must inform the market of any potentially price-sensitive information as soon as it becomes itself aware of the main points of such information,” explains Six, the Swiss exchange, in a press release.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Annual stickers for Swiss autoroutes go on sale Wednesday 1 December for CHF40. The 2011 sticker is valid from 1 December 2010 to 31 January 2012.
Current 2010 stickers are valid until 31 January 2011.
The new stickers have a silver background with the year in light blue on one side and white on the other. The old sticker must be removed and the new one placed on the inside of the windscreen, following the instructions that come with the sticker.
Motorbikes should have the sticker on the windscreen, but if the bike doesn’t have one it should be placed on another part of the bike that is not an easily interchangeable part, according to customs officials. Some bikers put it under the saddle.
They are sold by garages, post offices, car dealers and at customs posts.
Switzerland has an annual sticker in place of road tolls, to finance the autoroute system. The fine for travelling without a sticker is CHF100.
Sunny skies helped road workers dig out the car stuck on the Nufenen pass road the next day
Sion, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – It was probably a bad idea, in retrospect, to try to drive over the Nufenen Pass in Switzerland in the early hours of 16 November, a 24-year-old man could well be thinking. At 03:00 he decided to drive up and over from Ulrichen, canton Valais, ignoring the warning signs that the pass was closed due to snow, as well as the barrier blocking access to the road. He got as far as an area called “Ladstafel” when his car became stuck in the snow. He was unable to continue, but also couldn’t return the way he’d come because of an avalanche that cut off the road shortly after he passed.
The man then alerted emergency rescue services and the cantonal road crews tried to dig through to his car. They had to give up due to the heavy snow. The man left his car on the road and walked back to Ulrichen. His car was dug out the next day by a snowplow and road clearing equipment.
Police say he will be billed for the emergency response as well as the rescue the next day. And he’ll receive a fine for not respecting road signs. The likely amount of the final bill was not provided by police.
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Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Ronny Pecik, Georg Stumpf and Victor Vekselberg of Russian company Renova have paid a total of CHF10 million in compensation to the Swiss government in a Sulzer stock sale case dating back to 2006.
The three have also been suspects in a similar case with Oerlikon. The Federal Department of Finance says the two cases are not, however, related, and it will consider appealing a recent criminal court decision that acquitted the three in the Oerlikon case. It is waiting to receive the full written report from the criminal high court in Bellinzona, which in late September 2010 cleared the three of charges in the Oerlikon case and criticized the finance department.
In a statement issued Tuesday 19 October the finance department announced that:
“In paying compensation, the suspects have made amends for any wrongdoing regarding the building and disclosure of their stake in Sulzer AG between December 2006 and April 2007. As a result, it is unnecessary to further investigate whether the suspects violated Art. 41 of the Stock Exchange Act and whether the irregularities while accumulating the stake in Sulzer AG actually constituted a punishable breach of the disclosure obligations under the law applicable at the time. FDF Legal Services has thus dropped the criminal administrative proceedings in application of Article 53 of the Swiss Criminal Code.”
The CHF10m has gone to the finance department (CHF8 million), “which will use it in the interests of all market participants to strengthen the financial market and make sure it functions well”, and to Swiss Mountain Aid and Schweizer Patenschaft für Berggemeinden (Swiss Sponsorship for Mountain Communities), which each receive CHF1 million.
Bellinzona, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Victor Vekselberg, Russian billionaire who was fined CHF40 million by the Swiss Federal Finance department in December 2009, has won his appeal to a Swiss high court, the federal criminal court in Bellinzona, canton Ticino. Vekselberg and two directors of his company Renova had been fined for failing to provide Swiss authorities with details of Renova’s purchase of blocks of shares in OC Oerlikon.
The high court in a written decision dated 21 September was sharp in its criticism of the federal finance department, saying it had not only not provided proof of allegations that Renova, the Austrian company Victory from whom it bought the shares, and OC Oerlikon had formed a secret group before May 2008, buying shares separately then joining forces to create a powerful block, but that their behaviour fell into the line of normal business practices.
Vekselberg is considered to be worth $6.2 billion by Forbes, who listed him as number 113 among the world’s wealthiest people in 2010. He made his money in oil and metals, particularly aluminum.
Links to other sites: Swiss high court system explanation, criminal court decision, Forbes
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.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - Lewis Hamilton has been fined Aus$500 (about CHF510) for reckless driving in March, when he was caught doing a fishtail stunt on a busy Melbourne street. He was in the city for the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix race and after police spotted his smoking tires they pulled him over and questioned him. He was left to make his way back to the hotel on foot after they impounded the car, on loan to him by a dealer.
Swiss-based Hamilton was banned from driving in France in 2007 after being caught driving 123 miles per hour, well over French speed limits.
Happy and legal in Lausanne
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss customs officials say they will be sending a large bill plus fine, for an unspecified amount, to a woman in eastern Switzerland for illegally importing 12 dogs and selling them to unsuspecting buyers. The dogs did not have their rabies shots and the woman had not paid a value-added tax for imported animals. The anti-fraud unit alerted customs authorities after seeing her ads on the Internet for dogs of various breeds.
The federal customs office says its has caught 453 people bringing dogs into the country illegally since 2005, with the animals often in a “deplorable state”.
Outer and inner faces of the 2010 Swiss autoroute sticker
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Drivers have until the end of January 2010 to put them on their cars, but the 2010 Swiss autoroute sticker, called a vignette in French, goes on sale today. The background is metallic orange and the date reddish-brown. The CHF40 annual road tax has been sold at the same price since it became law in 1985, managed by the Swiss customs office.
The proof of tax paid sticker must be displayed by cars but also trucks and motorbikes on the autoroute.
France has fined eBay €1.7 million for not respecting fully a July 2008 injunction against sales of LMVH luxury goods on the online auction site. The web site reportedly let 1,400 sales of the company’s perfumes and other luxury goods slip through the filtering software it installed last year to comply with the court order. eBay was initially accused of not doing enough to stop copies of the company’s products, but the court order applies to fake as well as legitimate LMVH goods, new or used. Alex Von Schiermeister, director of eBay Europe, calls the fine disproportionate.
Links to other sites: BBC, CNet, TechCrunch
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The international football federation, Fifa, has handed Argintina’s football coach and former superstar Diego Maradona a CHF25,000 fine and a two month ban on participating in any football-related activities. Maradona’s outburst at the qualifying match between Uruguay and Argentina 14 October 2009 in Montevideo. Maradona, who was interviewed for 40 minutes by Fifa’s disciplinary committee, apologized to Fifa and the football world. The ban runs from 15 November-15 January 2010.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Motorists who fail to have a current year autoroute sticker correctly plastered to their cars risk a fine that will rise to CHF200. The upper house of parliament has approved a measure already passed by the lower house, that will increase fines from the current CHF100. The 6 percent of cars that travel on the highways without the sticker cost the government an estimated CHF20 million a year.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Parties involved in the negotiations for a settlement in the UBS court case in Miami, Florida, USA – the Swiss and US governments as well as the bank itself – have agreed to total silence on details of the agreement they are working out while the negotiations continue, in theory to 7 August. But the ban on information is not keeping media from speculating, always citing unnamed sources which are usually called sources close to the negotiations.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The CHF5 you now pay if you’ve rushed onto a Swiss train without buying your ticket in advance will go up to CHF10 on Switzerland’s national day, 1 August. The CFF rail company and public transport authorities have agreed to the increase in order to discourage the growing number of people who get on trains without a ticket, slowing down ticket-checkers and making it difficult for them to complete their tour of the train.
Intel has been fined $1.45 billion by the European Union Competition Commissioner for deliberately trying to keep competitors out of the market after an eight-year investigation that showed the company giving rebates to customers who routinely bought all their chips from Intel. The fine is the largest in EU history and twice that faced by Microsoft in 2004, reports Bloomberg. Intel is the world’s largest computer-chip maker.
Bern, Switzerland (NZZ, Ger) – Zurich newspaper NZZ reported Thursday 30 April that the vignette, Switzerland’s autoroute use tax that comes in the form of a windshield sticker, will keep its present form, but fines for those who get on the road without a sticker could double.
