LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The first international meeting with experts from 15 countries to focus on the Arab spring and returning embezzled funds to Arab nations ended Tuesday afternoon 24 January in Lausanne with a call for greater coordination. The meeting was the sixth in the Lausanne Process, launced in 2001 by Switzerland’s Foreign Affairs Department to promote dialogue between countries affected by corruption and recipient countries of illicitly acquired assets.
The two-day meeting in Lausanne, in the run-up to the World Economic Forum in Davos, pulled in government representatives, specialists and advisors from international organizations to review “first lessons learned”, one year after the toppling of dictatorships in the Middle East began. Switzerland, which was the first country to freeze Tunisian leaders’ assets, 19 January 2011, said in September that the CHF60 million identified in Switzerland is only a small part of the billions hidden but that recipient countries will have to work closely to untangle the money trails.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – TSR, Swiss public television, revealed Monday that the Geneva branch of HSBC has had CHF11 million in assets of deposed Tunisian dictator Ben Ali’s clan, information the bank has not publicly confirmed. The accounts were reportedly opened by Belhassen Tribelsi, Ben Ali’s wife’s brother.
He is now on the run, reportedly in Canada, on the Interpol red list.
The accounts raise serious questions, argues TSR, about the diligence with which Swiss banks have been respecting Swiss money laundering laws and laws covering “politically exposed persons”.
Banks in Switzerland must announce funds of anyone considered to be politically exposed; Tribelsi was on the list of 40 Tunisians sent by the Swiss government to banks immediately after Ben Ali’s fall. The funds in his name would be equal to one-sixth of the CHF60 million Tunisian funds that were blocked by the Swiss government, TSR points out, noting that the brother-in-law was notoriously corrupt and that under Swiss money laundering laws the bank would have been expected to report him earlier.
TSR: http://www.tsr.ch/info/suisse/3403069-clan-ben-ali-11-millions-dans-une-banque-a-geneve.html
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss officials, like those in the European Union, say they must wait for a new United Nations resolution before allowing financial institutions to release frozen assets of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi and his entourage, but several countries are meeting in Doha today, 24 August, to discuss an emergency request for $2.5 from Libya’s National Transitional Council.
The UN Security Council’s resolution in early 2011 to block Qaddafi assets led to an estimated $100 billion being frozen, in several countries, according to the Financial Times, which lists the US as the largest holder, at $37b, and the US $12, with Germany holding another $7.3b.
The exact amount frozen in Switzerland has not been confirmed by the Swiss government, but it is likely to be a fraction of the total blocked, possibly less than CHF1 billion, according to earlier figures released by the government. Libya withdrew much of the money it had in Swiss banks and other financial institutions in 2008 after Hannibal Qaddafi, the younger son of Muammar, was arrested at a Geneva hotel for attacking one of his employees.
Swiss government begins proceedings to return funds under new law
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Jean-Claude Duvalier, in his first televised interview since being detained by police in Haiti in mid-January, told UniVision television Wednesday 2 February that the CHF6.8 million blocked by the Swiss government belongs to a foundation created by his family to help Haiti.
He himself never had accounts frozen in Switzerland, he said, and he would like to see the money used to help Haiti recover from the destruction wrought by the January 2010 earthquake.
About the same time on Wednesday the Swiss Federal Council said in a statement that it has asked the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) to begin the “forfeiture” process with the Swiss administrative high court. The FDF must do so within a year. As part of the process “representatives of the Duvalier family will have the opportunity to demonstrate the legal origin of the frozen funds in the framework of the forfeiture procedure now under way.”
Background, GenevaLunch
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government says it “deplores” the fact that it was obliged 15 July to inform Swiss banks and the heirs to accounts that belonged to former Zaire (now DR Congo) dictator Mobutu Sese Seko that nearly CHF8 million in Swiss banks must be unfrozen, meaning the money returns to the family. “The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs deplores this result, which marks the end of 12 years of freezing of the assets in which all conceivable solutions were attempted. Since 1997 the Confederation has gone to considerable lengths to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.”
