PARIS, FRANCE / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The French high court (Cours de cassation) in Paris published a ruling Tuesday 31 January that data stolen in 2007 from British bank HSBC in Geneva by its employee Hervé Falciani cannot be used by French tax authorities because it was illegally obtained. Falciani turned over the list of more than 15,000 bank accounts to the French tax office and Nice attorney general Eric de Montgolfier. France identified 3,000 of these as falling under French tax jurisdiction and shared the remaining data with Italy and Portugal.
Swiss news agency ats cites French media as saying that only 800 of the accounts have been reviewed, and the remaining account holders, if they are not yet tax compliant, have nothing to fear from the data theft. The Swiss agency cites “informed sources” as saying that French tax officials knew the information could not be used, but held the data over clients’ heads to pressure them into identifying themselves to the tax office.
Background, GenevaLunch: Falciano and HSBC data theft
Valais aeolian project: more noise studies needed says Swiss high court
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss high court in Lausanne has ruled against the upper house of parliament and the canton Valais high court over the question of how much noise a windmill park will make.
A resident of Collonges, in Valais, who has tried to stop the Dents du Midi aeolian project from going ahead on the grounds of potential noise was backed by the federal court, which says that more tests are needed to determine if the park will create a nuisance.
Parliament and the cantonal court had refused to take up the complaint, citing an expert study carried out from 2007 to 2009, but the federal court notes that the study is “incomplete”.
In particular, the court says the study looked at winds from the south, whereas Collonges is affected by north winds. The study also did not measure the noise level when winds are low at night, the moment when they could pose a greater problem, the court notes.
It has sent the case back to the cantonal court, thus delaying the project while the Valais court determines if the person who lodged the complaint, who lives more than one kilometre away from the park, can be considered a qualified party to oppose the project.
Next door, major French publishers sue Google for illegally copying millions of books
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Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Google says, as was widely expected, it will now appeal an April Swiss court ruling that upheld a ban on Google Street View showing faces and vehicle license plates. The court had suggested that Google might have to review the cost of masking and its clients might have to pick up the bill, but Google Wednesday 11 May says there is a “strong possibility” it would close down the service.
Google says it is taking its case to the Supreme Court on behalf of its users, “dozens of thousands” of whom use Street View every day. A new study shows that 53 percent of Swiss Internet users have at some point used the map service, says the company, which also notes that it is widely used by Swiss firms.
The Swiss Administrative High Court 4 April backed “partially”, according to the court’s statement, the arguments of Switzerland’s Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner Hanspeter Thuer, in ruling that Google must obscure faces and license plates for use on Street View.
Patrick Warnking, Country Manager for Google Switzerland, said in a statement Wednesday, issued before a press conference, that Google is not fighting the lower court decision for financial reasons, stating that “we don’t make any profit with Google Street View”, but for “the sake of innovation and the benefits this brings to Switzerland”.
Warnking insists that the company has recently developed software that obscures faces and license plates automatically, although he did not provide details of when the new system was put in place.
Also 11 May, in neighbouring France, a group of major publishers announced they have taken Google to court for copyright infringement. Gallimard, Flammarion and Albin Michel are suing Google France and its parent company in the US for €9.8 million for illegally copying close to 10,000 books. Google, according to Le Monde, expressed surprise at the move, saying it has been working with French publishing houses for some time to help them increase the number of readers and the publishers’ revenues.
Jim Lacey, a former National Irish Bank (NIB) director, has been disqualified for “gross negligence” and “various breaches of duty”, with a high court judge finding that “his conduct made him unfit to be concerned in the management of a company”. The ruling followed an investigation of 10 years of the bank’s activities, with the inspectors concluding in 2004 that the bank was involved in widespread tax evasion. Lacey’s tenure as chief executive and director ran from 1988 to 1994 and the ruling comes 17 years after the event.
Lacey had argued that being disqualified would have major consequences for him; the Irish Times notes that “since leaving NIB, he was appointed to various State boards, including the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, worked with the World Bank and was a director of two International Financial Service Centre companies.”
The judge’s lengthy report came down hard on Lacey for at best being unaware of certain practices at the bank which, as CEO, were his responsibility. “While noting Mr Lacey had said he was unaware of various improper practices within the bank, the judge described as ‘bordering on incredulity’ Mr Lacey’s insistence he did not know what a senior NIB official meant in 1989 when describing non-resident accounts as ‘a sensitive issue’ and referring to ‘this thorny subject’ of Revenue concerns,” according to the Irish Times. “Mr Lacey should have been aware – and in some cases was aware – of a practice of treating certain accounts as non-resident accounts when they were not, the judge said. Mr Lacey ought to have known that practice facilitated the evasion of Dirt by the bank.”
Dirt is the acronym for Deposit Interest Retention Tax.
RTE, Irish broadcast company, notes that the length of the disqualification period will be set in May.
Google publishes the locations where it is filming: while the court case is heard in Bern, Google Street View crews are out in cantons Ticino, Valais and Zurich Thursday
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Swiss high court today will hear the case for Google’s widely popular Street Views, which have been the subject of a legal tangle in Switzerland almost since the company began publishing them in August 2009. The court will have a full house for the 10:00 hearing, with all seats reserved.
The government and Google in December 2009 reached an agreement limiting the use of Street Views in Switzerland until the case could be heard by the high court.
The Swiss Federal Administrative Tribunal, one of Switzerland’s three high courts, Thursday 24 February hears “A-7040/2009, Google Street View”, brought by the federal data protection and information commissioner against Google Inc. and Google Switzerland.
Today Google will argue 10 reasons why Street Views should be allowed in Switzerland, with the emphasis on equal treatment: its street views provide no more information than images carried by Internet media of people and places or, for that matter, the company argues, the federal government web site.
Its case will be watched carefully because of court cases in other countries, with Canada and Australia among the countries where Google has had legal problems over Street View.
Its other arguments include:
A British court will be watched closely when it decides the case of a couple, Eunice and Owen Johns, who 1 November took the Darby City Council to court over its refusal to allow them to be foster parents because of their strong fundamentalist Christian beliefs and their insistence that foster children must attend church with them. Their beliefs do not allow them to accept homosexuality, and part of the city’s concern has been respecting gay human rights, so the case appears to be pitting sexual preference rights against religious belief rights. The couple’s case asks for a clarification of UK law.
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) – Put down your cards, fellas, for the Texas Hold’em game is over in Switzerland, outside of casinos. The game is the rare variety of poker that’s been allowed outside casinos, but a series of court cases has just ended with a decision restricting where the game can be played.
The judges at Switzerland’s highest court said they were not convinced that skill outweighed chance in the test case that went through lower courts. Swiss law allows some tournaments for money to be organized outside casinos if a set of conditions are met, if it’s not clear whether the game involves more chance or skill: in the test case these conditions were not met.
Texas Hold’em was allowed outside Swiss casinos starting in 2007.
Jose Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed as president of Honduras in a coup 28 June, says he will not participate in a presidential election slated for 29 November and that he has asked his supporters to renounce it. His announcement came in a published letter explaining his case to US President Barack Obama. His decision is a blow to hopes for a negotiated settlement that arose when he and Roberto Micheletti, who pushed him from power, signed a US-brokered agreement in October that called for a unity government until the election. It also called for Congress to decide if Zelaya should be returned to power, but Congress has opted to hand that decision to the country’s highest court. The elections are causing problems for Honduran citizens outside the country, who are unsure where and how to vote: in Florida the Honduran consulate says citizens should vote there, but the Honduran government says the consulate no longer has the authority to authorize this.
The dispute is the latest in a series of diplomatic tussles involving Hondurans. The Honduran ambassador to the UN was expelled from the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva 14 September after the group’s president, Alex van Meeuwen of Belgium, decided that Delmer Urbizo, the Honduran ambassador, was not the legitimate representative of the government of Honduras. Van Meeuwen made his decision after various points of order called by a group of Latin American countries who questioned the Honduran’s credentials and the legitimacy of the government he represents. Argentina, Brazil, Cuba and Mexico argued that the UN General Assembly had called on organizations not to recognize the interim government of Honduras. But Urbizo has told GenevaLunch there is no Honduran government in exile under former President Zelaya, and therefore the Honduran people is being deprived of its legitimate right to be represented in international forums.
Links to other sites: CNN, Miami Herald
Swiss Federal Tribunal, Bern
Updated 14:00 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss cabinet has agreed to allow up to five additional but temporary posts for Federal Administrative Tribunal judges, to allow the high court to handle a sudden increase in legal cases likely to arise in relation to UBS client names requested by US tax authorities.
Bern said Friday 18 September that it expects some 500 appeals by the end of the year in cases where the Swiss finance ministry agrees to provide judicial assistance to the IRS, the US tax authority. The request for assistance are being made by the IRS as par of a 31 August agreement between Switzerland and the US.
Five Law Lords in Britain’s highest court have ruled in the case of a woman in deteriorating health from multiple sclerosis (MS), Debbie Purdy, that the director of public prosecutions (DPP) must clarify the legal situation concerning assisted suicide. “Everyone has the right to respect for their private life and the way that Ms Purdy determines to spend the closing moments of her life is part of the act of living. . . Ms Purdy wishes to avoid an undignified and distressing end to her life. She is entitled to ask that this too must be respected.”
The DPP says it will now come up with an interim policy by the end of September, while working on longer term changes. Purdy had fought for a change to UK laws in order to avoid being forced to visit Dignitas in Zurich, Switzerland, too early in order to avoid putting her husband at risk legally for helping her if she waited until she was unable to travel alone. AFP, The Times, Telegraph
