Philipp Hildebrand resigning 9 January 2012 as chairman of the board of the Swiss National Bank
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Kashya Hildrebrand broke no rules and Christoph Blocher should not have parliamentary immunity: two decisions came from separate corners Wednesday 25 April that could shift the impact of the scandal that led to the resignation of Switzerland’s central bank chief Philipp Hildebrand in early January.
The Swiss National Bank announced Wednesday evening that an audit by KPMG of accounts of Kashya Hildebrand, wife of then-SNB chairman Philipp Hildebrand, “did not identify any activities which might suggest that transactions were carried out via Kashya Hildebrand’s business and private accounts which were in breach of the rules or guidelines in force during the period covered by the investigation.”
The audit was ordered 13 March, six days after the central bank’s governors said that an initial audit had turned up no wrongdoing, but “the business and private accounts of Kashya Hildebrand, wife of the former chairman of the Governing Board, were not included. The second audit covered this.
No immunity before being member of parliament
Right-wing politician Christoph Blocher, who is a former member of the Federal Council and strategist for the nationalist UDC People’s Party, and currently a member of parliament, has claimed parliamentary immunity for his role in the Hildebrand scandal.
The immunity commission of the lower house of parliament today voted 6 to 2 with 1 abstention against giving him immunity for events that occurred 3 December. This is the date when an IT specialist at Hildebrand’s bank, through a lawyer who is a politician, showed Blocher details of Hildebrand’s personal bank account, which is protected under Swiss privacy laws. Blocher had been elected to parliament but was not yet a member. The commission refused, however, voting 5-4, to lift immunity for Blocher’s actions 27 December. He is under investigation by Zurich’s attorney general for breaking bank secrecy laws on both dates.
Blocher and Hildebrand had been at odds for months over the SNB’s policies. Hildebrand resigned 9 January as the scandal unfolded, saying that while he and his wife had done no wrong, he did not want to see the Swiss central bank dragged down by the affair.
A family no matter which name they choose
BERN, SWITZERLAND – All is supposed to be fair in love and war, but Swiss law covering keeping your name or changing it when you marry has not treated men and women equally.
This will change 1 January 2013, when married couples and homosexual couples will have more options.
The changes passed by parliament in September 2011 also cover the names of children, so it extends to unmarried couples with children.
Bern’s announcement of the change states: “Marriage in theory no longer has an impact on the name of the members of a couple nor any obligation to change these. Each of them keeps his or her own name and the right to maintain it. An engaged couple may, however, announce that they intend to use the name of either one as the single family name. The same option is available to same-sex couples who have registered their partnership.”
A partner who changed his or her name upon marriage under the current law and who wishes to change it back to the pre-marriage name may, at any time, tell the civil authorities that he or she wants to make the change.
Same-sex couples who registered their partnership before the change in the law have one year to declare the pre-partnership name they want to share.
The changes include:
- Children of married parents take either the single shared family name or, if the parents have different names, the pre-marriage name that the parents choose as a family name when they marry
- If the parents are not married, the child carries the mother’s name
- If the parents have shared custody, they may opt for the child to have the father’s name; they have one year to officially declare this
- In the case of unmarried parents with joint custody the parents have one year to give the child the father’s name, but once a child is 12, the child’s agreement is needed to make any name change.
Decision says US request was not in line with tax agreement
Tribunal confirms to GenevaLunch that decision was based on 1996 agreement
Update 2 15:00 BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Administrative Court has struck a blow to US-Swiss tax administrative assistance discussions, ruling in favour of a Credit Suisse client who appealed a decision by Bern to hand over some bank account data to the IRS, the US government’s tax office.
The court notes, in a statement that could have wider implications, that “the Court reaffirms its case law that under the DTC USA-Switzerland 96 administrative assistance shall not be granted for presumed tax evasion, even if high amounts are at stake. It also confirms that the mere failure to declare a bank account may be qualified – at the utmost – as a tax evasion, which is not subject to administrative assistance.”
A court spokesperson told GenevaLunch that “The Court took its decision regarding the said case applying the agreement in force, ie the Double Taxation Convention USA-Switzerland 96″ since the new amendment is pending in the US Senate.
The Financial Times last month pointed out that “Legally, ratification of the change – via an amendment to a bilateral double tax treaty – has been blocked in the US Senate by presidential candidate Ron Paul.”
The court’s decision is final in Switzerland and cannot be appealed to the Swiss Supreme Court, the federal administrative judges note. The court rules on appeals to decisions made by the federal government and is the final authority for these; it is Switzerland’s largest federal court, with 75 judges.
No official government comment yet
The Swiss Federal Council has not yet issued a statement commenting on the ruling, which appears to complicate ongoing discussions about applying the newly approved double taxation agreement of 2009. The Swiss Parliament approved it 6 March, but the US Congress has not debated it or approved it. The amendment allows bank client data to be provided in some cases of suspected tax evasion and not just fraud, even if client names are not provided in a demand for administrative assistance.
Court’s review of US request shows conditions not met
The US asked for administrative assistance 26 September 2011 concerning clients at 11 Swiss banks. The court ruled 5 April, and published the results 11 April, that the requests were “too vague” and did not comply with the current treaty:
“The Federal Administrative Court concluded that the ‘search criteria’ for the identification of bank clients (category 2), as set out in the request for administrative assistance, are formulated in terms encompassing above all mere tax evasion, for which administrative assistance cannot be granted according to the applicable Double Taxation Convention USA-Switzerland 96. This is inconsistent with the principle of proportionality, which applies to proceedings regarding administrative assistance as well.”
The only fraudulent behaviour may be that of some Credit Suisse employees, it says, but that cannot be extended to the client in the case under review.
“The request for administrative assistance does not indicate the names of the bank clients, but only describes the above-mentioned conduct of the CS employees. Furthermore, it contains four categories of identification criteria, through which the bank can determine the clients concerned by the request for administrative assistance.
“The Federal Administrative Court holds that the conduct of the CS employees, as set forth in the request for administrative assistance, from which the conduct of the clients themselves may also be deduced, is covered by the term ‘tax fraud or the like’ in the sense of the DTC USA-Switzerland 96.”
New rules more flexible, but US requests cannot be vague
The new amendment was widely reported to be more flexible but Swiss cautionary notes that “fishing expeditions” would still not be allowed were glossed over by media. The court decision underscores the vagueness of the IRS request.
The Swiss federal government clarified the situation in a report published 10 February, a month before the parliament’s vote, “Report on international financial and tax matters 2012″:
“Switzerland has been holding talks with the United States on unresolved tax issues for more than a year. These talks relate to the US investigations into alleged infringements of US tax legislation by Swiss banks and the potential handover of client data. Under Swiss law, client data may be handed over as part of an administrative assistance procedure at federal level, but not directly by a bank. The objective of the negotiations with the US authorities is to find a solution that is compatible with Switzerland’s current legal framework.
“The cases of the directly affected banks are to be dealt with through requests for administrative assistance: in the case of tax fraud in accordance with the existing double taxation agreement (DTA) of 1996, and in the case of both tax fraud and tax evasion in accordance with the new – but not yet ratified – DTA of 2009. Under the existing DTA, requests for assistance are possible even without the provision of specific names or personal details, as long as an alternative form of identification is supplied. Applications on the basis of specific patterns of behaviour should also be possible under the new DTA without the provision of specific names or personal details.”
Update: Interviews in French on RTS news with the president of the Tribunal, who says another 30 similar cases are in line to be reviewed by the court, and with a lawyer who notes that if the new amendment to the treaty were in effect the court might have ruled differently.
A postage stamp to honour 100 years of Swiss laws
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland has a reputation for being a nation of tidy, law-abiding citizens, at least until the clichés abroad about secret bank accounts for foreigners get into the act; it is hard to imagine the country without laws to abide. This week the centenary of the Swiss civil code’s creation is being celebrated by another Swiss institution, the postal system, with a special issue stamp.
The civil code is known as the Swiss Civil Code of 10 December 1907, when it was approved, but it went into effect 1 January 1912. It was based primarily on the German civil code but borrowing from the French one at the time.
The underlying principle: “Every person must act in good faith in the exercise of his or her rights and in the performance of his or her obligations.”
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Migration Office’s current backlog of some 3,000 applications must be completed and applications brought up to date by 2013, former Swiss Federal Judge Michel Féraud concluded as part of his final report on applications for asylum in Switzerland.
But the most damning part of his report covers applications from Iraqis at the Swiss embassies in Egypt and Syria, from 2006 to 2008: the judge writes that a Swiss Justice and Police Department decision in November 2006 to not handle the applications was not in line with procedures defined by law, and it violated constitutional guarantees.
Rigid system contributed to decision to ignore applications, backlog
His report implies that the blame lies with the rigidity of the legal situation, according to a Federal Council statement issued 11 January: all Swiss embassies are required to accept and handle asylum applications, although they are not equipped, in terms of staffing, to do so. The applicants, had they been turned down by Switzerland, would not have been obliged to return to Iraq, since they had been accepted by Egypt and Syria.
One of the debates that was taking place at the time was how to better distinguish between legitimate asylum seekers and migrants. The number of asylum seekers grew steadily from the 1970s, federal statistics show, and the resident asylum population peaked at some 105,000 in 1999. The number of applicants has been in the range of about 10-15,000 annually for the past decade just under 11,000 in 2007, with 15,567 applicants in 2011.
UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) figures published in November show that the decline in applications for asylum occurred worldwide, not just in Switzerland, from 2000 to 2010.
Judge not suggesting legal pursuit
Féraud notes that, given the lapse of time and the Federal Council’s stated desire in 2010 to make the regulations less rigid, thus giving embassies more discretion in handling cases, he is not recommending disciplinary action. His investigation did not turn up any acts of wrongdoing such as overstepping the bounds of their authority on the part of government employees.
Blocher headed department in 2005, successors unaware of decision
Christoph Blocher was the federal councilor with responsibility for the Justice and Police Department at the time; his right-wing UDC People’s Party came in for heavy criticism inside and outside Switzerland in 2006 for posters seen to be racist, as the party campaigned to reduce the number of immigrants.
Blocher was succeeded as head of the department by Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf after he lost his seat on the council in December 2007, but neither Widmer-Schlumpf nor her successor as minister with responsibility for the federal office, Simonetta Sommaruga, were informed of the Iraqi applications and the decision to ignore them.
The report was requested by the Federal Council in August 2011 when it was made aware that the applications had not been dealt with for a number of years.
Féraud filed it 22 December and the Federal Council 11 January acknowledged publicly that it had received and is considering the report.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland’s anti-corruption laws are good, but they should be strengthened, the government has been told by The Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption, Greco. Two areas that need legal reinforcement are laws covering bribery of officials, particularly of foreign governments, and the Swiss political contributions system.
Swiss political parties are not obliged to report the sources of their contributions and donors are not obliged to publicly state the amounts they give to parties, or even announce their donations.
Greco also noted in a report released 2 December that “the number of convictions is low in relation to the number of investigations opened, particularly as regards bribery in the private sector and bribery of foreign public officials, despite Switzerland’s important role in the international economy.”
Some artists would like to see tougher Swiss laws covering music downloads; others say musicians need to make it easier for fans to have some free music
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Federal Council has ruled that the country’s laws concerning illegal downloads are adequate and additional legislation is not needed. The decision follows requests by artists’ groups for further protection. France in recent years has tightened its legislation and in some cases people who have illegally downloaded music, for example, have been banned from using the Internet.
Switzerland’s IP (intellectual property) laws allow Internet downloading for private consumption, but not for sharing. Anyone who uses popular download systems that essentially re-share is acting illegally; fines in Switzerland can run to CHF600, reports TSR (Fr).
Parents whose jobs could see them moving abroad will have to get permission in future
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Divorcing parents in Switzerland will soon be faced with joint custody as the norm. Switzerland is changing its child custody laws to balance the rights and responsibilities of both parents, in the case of divorce but also of non-married parents who do not live together.
The Federal Council adopted measures Thursday 17 November that makes joint custody the rule; only when a child’s welfare is considered at risk will the courts be able to make an exception. Examples of this could be inexperience, sickness or infirmity, a tendency towards violence or absence.
The Swiss parliament will need to approve the new measures which were recommended to the council, or cabinet, by a parliamentary commission. They have also been reviewed by a roundtable that involved parliament and the measures are not likely to face strong opposition.
The law currently gives custody to one parent in the case of divorce but only to the mother if the parents never married. Parents who want joint custody must apply for it after coming to an agreement on visits and financial support.
Parents who are not married but who split up will no longer have custody automatically given to one parent; if they cannot resolve issues of visits and money, child protection authorities will decide which parent is given custody.
Joint decisions about domicile, daily life
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Italy’s Prime MinisterSilvio Berlusconi agreed late Tuesday 8 November to step down, but on condition that the parliament pass two key financial reforms. There were signs Wednesday that parliament would play his game, with the leader of the opposition party, Dario Franceschini, saying his party is ready to approve the law by the end of the week. But even this was not enough to contain borrowing costs and calm markets, reports the Financial Timesin the early afternoon: “The sell-off in the Italian bond market spread into equity and currency markets, with the Eurofirst 300 down more than 2 per cent and the euro down 1.5 per cent against the dollar at 1.3627.”
Reuters had written early Wednesday that markets were set to rally on the news of Berlusconi’s departure after some 20 years of colourfully marking Italian politics.
Berlusconi told his own TV station Canale 5 Wednesday that he will not run in 2012, when early elections are held. “I will resign as soon as the law is passed. Since I believe there is no other majority possible, I see elections being held at the beginning of February and I will not be a candidate in them,” reports Xinhuanet. He repeated his determination not to stand again to newspaper La Stampa.
Protect the sheep from the wolf or the wolf from the man or is there a way to do both, asks Bern
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Bring up hunting and fishing, protecting the environment and the population’s growing use of nature areas, and you can expect passions to rise quickly. This is exactly what the Swiss government found when it put out for public consultation its proposed changes to hunting and fishing laws, the first in 25 years.
The changes, announced in April 2011, would provide wildlife populations with greater protection from human activities, especially leisure use of the outdoors, by creating nature reserve zones.
The new law would provide a number of birds with greater protection, starting with a ban on buckshot with lead to hunt fowl, improved measures to prevent the introduction of non-native animals and longer periods where hunting is not allowed, to protect native species, including carrion crows, jays and magpies. Hunters will be able to go after rooks, on the other hand, because their growing European population is a problem.
Populations and hunting measures for protected animal species, including lynx, wolves and beavers, will be regulated on a regional basis if they are causing too much damage, under the new law—with the stipulation that their populations must be large and stable enough to maintain the diversity of species. Any such measures by cantons must have prior federal government approval.
The consultation period ended 15 July and Bern is now grappling with the thorny problem of how to take into account some 80 strongly voiced and opposing points of view from several organization and individuals, especially over the issue of predatory animals.
Cantonal and federal bodies are mostly in agreement with the proposed changes, according to Detec (the federal department for the environment, energy, transport and communications). Farmers, hunters, fishermen and animal protection groups have come out strongly against specific aspects of the law, but often for diametrically opposed reasons.
Switzerland is home to the Bern Convention, which protects wolves, but the country has also been the scene of an ongoing battle between animal rights groups and farmers, particularly in canton Valais, where the small wolf population has cost farmers by going after herds of sheep.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Nineteen drivers were hauled in by Fribourg police and 14 of their souped-up cars were seized in an operation that came to light in part thanks to YouTube videos the young men made of their exploits. The drivers, aged 18 to 27, raced regularly on stretches of autoroute between Fribourg and Bulle, in particular on the Givisiez semi-autoroute and the A12.
Police noticed, starting in early 2010, that several drivers were using Givisiez and A12 stretches as racetracks, driving at speeds of up to 190 kph.
They made their first arrest 28 July 2010. The 28-year-old driver admitted to taking part in races and to making videos posted on YouTube where he recorded his speeds. He had been arrested in March 2010 when he was involved in an accident on the A12, driving 190 kph, which resulted in damages but no injuries.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The judicial commission of the upper house of the Swiss Parliament Friday called for tough new rules on genital mutilation to become part of the Swiss penal code. The greatest change would be to the location where the mutilation is carried out: current law limits this to Switzerland, but the new law, if it makes it through the parliamentary system, would allow charges to be pressed against anyone who is on Swiss territory and who has encouraged or carried out the practice, even outside Switzerland.
The modified law would close a loophole that has brought several cases into Swiss headlines in recent years, with children either mutilated in Switzerland or taken to their parents’ homeland to have it done, even though the children are growing up in Switzerland, where the practice is illegal. The parents are generally from a culture where genital mutilation is considered acceptable and they are often not well integrated into Switzerland themselves.
The commission argues that a change in the law would make it easier to bring charges against these human rights violations because it would eliminate current courtroom debates over definitions and proof.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 45-year-old woman from the Dominican Republic was found dead in a studio apartment on the rue des Uttins in Yverdon-les-Bains Sunday evening, and police are calling it homicide. An investigation was opened after police, called in by people close to the woman, found her body with fatal knife wounds and her hands bound.
The studio is in a building with several apartments that are used by legally registered prostitutes.
Swiss cities, Geneva included, are home to enormous wealth, not all of it legitimate
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – For the first time since Switzerland set up its Money Laundering Reporting Office (MROS) in 2002, the number of “suspicious activity reports” (Sars) passed 1,000 in a year. The Swiss Federal Police office reports 28 April that in 2010 the total number of Sars was 1,159, a 29 percent increase over 2009.
FATF assessments of Swiss action on money laundering
Switzerland has been tightening its money laundering laws and stepping up preventive measures since the late 1990s, with a review in October 2009 by the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) showing good progess made since a 2005 review pointed out a number of weak spots.
Switzerland was accepted in 2009 into the FATF system of regular two year reviews, with the next one set for October 2011. It was commended on several points, including its improvements in the system to quickly identify assets of politically exposed persons, mainly dictators.
Switzerland has been particularly sensitive on this score, and in early 2011 was quick to freeze assets of people linked to Egyptian, Tunisian and Libyan regimes.
Weaknesses that were pointed out by FATF in 2009 included extending to a larger group the obligation to submit Sars: lawyers, insurance agents, real estate dealers among others.
One of Switzerland’s biggest problems, the task force said, is clearly identifying real owners when property is purchased or insurance contracts bought, with a third party acting for the owner.
Terrorism money laundering “more or less the same” in 2010 as in 2009
Terrorist financing was shown in only four cases, the new federal police reports indicates, although the number of Sars linked to terrorism jumped from 7 submissions in 2009 to 13 in 2010. Ten of these were forwarded by the MROS to the Swiss attorney general’s office, but six “had no hard evidence of terrorist financing”, the federal police say.
One complex case accounted for eight of the Sars and one case alone involved CHF19 million of the CHF23m total assets for the 13 Sars submitted. All in all, “the situation in 2010 remained more or less the same as in the previous year.”
Financial institutions reported 71% of cases
Evolene ski slope where girl slid to her death
Sion, Valais (GenevaLunch) – A criminal investigation is pursuing two people following initial official inquiries into the death of a 12-year-old girl in Evolène, canton Valais, in February.
The girl died after sliding downhill and crashing into a pylon when she slipped from a towbar at the top of a ski slope.
Cantonal justice officials emphasize that the two are presumed to be innocent unless facts show otherwise, but they have began investigating the manager of the company that operates the resort’s ski lifts, Télé-Evolène SA, as well as the piste and safety manager.
Background stories, GenevaLunch 12 February and 10 February
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Silvano Orsi, who took a brother of the ruler (since 2004) of the UAE (United Arab Emirates) to court in Switzerland over a 2003 attack at La Reserve hotel, has filed a lawsuit against the brother, Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, in Boston, in the US.
The 43-year-old American lawsuit filed charges of defamation Wednesday 16 March, according to the Boston Herald, and the Wall St Journal reports that he is asking for $7 million in damages.
He also reportedly filed charges against the prince and the owner of La Reserve in Geneva in September 2010, his lawyer, Pierre Bayenet, told journalists at the time.
Photo: reproduced with permission, Herbditl, flickr.com/photos/herbivore
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s tourists could have one less scam to contend with this summer if the city’s politicians move quickly enough to ban the “shell and pea” street game people. The game, known as “bonneteau” in French, has been widely advertised as a con, but Geneva police have been limited in their ability to crack down on it. The cantonal council wants to make it a petty crime with a fine of up to CHF10,000 according to local media, but passing the measure, part of a long council agenda, could take time.
The game drew so many complaints in the summer of 2010 that city police handed out 30,000 flyers in English to warn tourists against the con men’s confidence trick.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A youth who was knifed in the chest died on the operating table after being rushed to a Geneva hospital Wednesday evening 2 March. The incident occurred on a side street, rue Tronchin, off the Rue de Servette at about 20:00. Police are not releasing details.
A second incident occurred that police say is not connected: a youth who was knifed in the stomach and the face at Plainpalais was taken to hospital, where he had surgery. Police are not releasing details. The attack occurred at the bus stop in front of Uni Mail, near number 42, boulevard du Pont d’Arve.
Geneva has had two murders to date in 2011. The city saw five murders in 2010.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in canton Vaud were alerted in January to 900 marijuana plants in a hangar in Coinsins by a neighbour who complained that a strong smell of cannabis was coming from the area. Armed with a search warrant they recently discovered a production facility whose plants could provide about 8kg of marijuana.
The Swiss man, in his 50s, who owns the operation, admitted to the facts and was taken into custody for breaking Swiss drug laws. The haul in the village near Nyon included 430 plant slips, 301 flowering plants, 30 fully grown ones in pots and 260 plants in the process of being dried. Drying lights and aeration filters as well as a complete electrical system were also seized by police.
Theft, high-speed chase prompt cross-border police cooperation: three men arrested
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two masked men who robbed a Tamoil station at gunpoint on the Pont-de-la-Fin in Croix-de-Rozon, canton Geneva, were arrested in France, along with a third man who served as the driver. The three were spotted when they passed, at high speed, an unmarked police car shortly after the robbery, as they were heading towards the French border.
Geneva police asked for the car, with French plates, to be identified. They promptly signalled the robbery to border guards and French police, using the Épervier 74 plan, which automatically alerts police and the gendarmerie (road patrols) in neighbouring Haute-Savoie and Ain.
The three, driving what was later identified as a stolen black Renault Mégane, crashed through a Viry toll booth at 120 kph but were not caught at that point. They were spotted soon after at Beynost in Ain and later in the morning at Villeurbanne, reports Le Dauphine French newspaper. A high-speed chase ensued and the three were caught. All are French, from the Lyons region and in their early 20s.
Geneva authorities have opened an investigation into the robbery, in which one of the cashiers was slightly wounded.
The three men, driving what turned out to be a stolen black Renault
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:
Pubic transport in Switzerland is not free, but companies will have trouble, for now, fining cheats
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A Swiss high court has ruled in favour of a Fribourg woman who refused to pay a CHF80-100 fine for taking the bus without having a ticket.
The Swiss parliament will now have to scramble to plug a hole in the federal transport law, which, since a recent change was made, allows transport companies to fine people who have not vaidated their tickets but it overlooks travellers who simply don’t have a valid ticket.
The ATS news agency says the second group is a far larger problem for transport companies, and quotes the public prosecutor in Fribourg, Fabien Gasser, as saying that 150-200 similar cases are sitting in files, waiting for the Federal Tribunal in Lausanne to judge the Fribourg woman’s case.
Some tickets issued by Swiss transport systems have to be punched to validate them, for example 10-trip passes, but most are valid once the ticket is issued. The law specifically mentions those who have not stamped or punched tickets that need validating, but it fails to specifically list those who fraudulently ride trains, buses and trams without paying.
Rudolf Elmer at a press conference in Zurich 19 January
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Rudolf Elmer, the former Bank Julius Baer employee who famously appeared with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks two days before his trial in Zurich for theft and threatening his former employer, has had one of his appeals turned down, his lawyer has told Swiss media in a press release.
He was convicted but given a suspended sentence 19 January for threats and theft, a lighter sentence than the prosecutor had demanded. He was then re-arrested within minutes on suspicion of breaking Switzerland’s banking secrecy laws, with which he was charged 22 January.
The appeal that was turned down 16 February was for the 19 January judgement, which did not cover banking secrecy.
He appealed, 27 January, his 22 January remand in custody for breaking bank secrecy laws by handing information to tax authorities, and this remains pending.
Elmer’s attorney, Ganden Tethong, noted in a press release 22 January that:
“The parties were informed of the court’s ruling this afternoon. In its decision, the court held that:
- there is probable cause to arrest Mr Elmer
- there is danger of collusion; in conclusion
- it granted remand.”
Switzerland’s law forbids bankers from handing data on client accounts to tax authorities unless done so at the client’s request.
Related stories in GenevaLunch:
Julius Baer nemesis reborn as Assange pal (17 January 2011)Rudolf Elmer arrested again over latest WikiLeaks handover (19 January 2011)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Tribune de Genève was fined CHF1,500 for publishing a blog post written by Geneva councillor Eric Stauffer, as part of a court decision against Stauffer for defamy. The newspaper has appealed the decision, says Pierre Ruetschi, managing editor, citing legal precedents in other countries, arguing that a media that hosts blog content and comments cannot be held liable for them.
The decision was rendered in December 2010 but publicized recently by 20 Minutes. Stauffer was fined CHF4,500 for defaming an unnamed former director of the cantonal bank, BCG, with the judgement noting that although no name was published the details made it clear who the target was.
Swiss see 102 new int’l child kidnapping, visiting rights cases in 2010
18 children returned home to Switzerland
Photo ©2011 Rohit Acharya, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhohit/
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Seven is the average age and in 2010 there were 147 of them at the centre of complaints: children who are kidnapped by one parent, or who have one parent refused visitation rights by the other.
Switzerland in 2010 recorded 102 new cases of kidnappings and visiting rights violations under two international agreements. Seventy complaints of kidnapping were filed and 32 of visiting rights violations. More cases were filed from Switzerland by a parent trying to gain access to a child outside the country, 59, than by parents who were abroad, with the child in Switzerland: 42 cases.
The countries filing the largest number of complaints in Switzerland were France (9), Brazil (6), Germany (5) and the United States (4).
Mothers are most often the authors of the crimes: 71 percent in the case of kidnappings and 84 percent for violation of visiting rights.
Eighteen children who had been kidnapped were returned home in 2010. They came mainly from: Belgium Bulgaria, Colombia, Dominican Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Macedonia, Portugal, Serbia and the United States.
Central Swiss registry pushes for int’l law to include child reps, conciliation
Spain 2 January joins Britain, Italy and France in making its indoor cafes, bars and restaurants no-smoking areas, as part of a ban on smoking in all public enclosed spaces. The outcry by bar owners and smokers in a country where one-third of the population smokes has been loud, but the government points out that similar bans in other parts of Europe have not had the disastrous impact on business that was feared, in the long run.
Links to other sites: CNN, El Pais (Spa), GoSpain on About.com
Couples have four family name options when they marry in Switzerland, but the European Court may change this
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government has been told by the European Court of Human Rights to pay a Swiss-Hungarian couple €10,000 in damages and reimburse them €4,515 in legal costs for discrimination against dual national couples. The two have been fighting Swiss marriage laws that prevented both of them from keeping their original family names.
The couple, who live in canton Bern, took their case to the European Court after a Swiss high court refused to overturn a ruling by the canton. The European court’s decision in the case, Losonci Rose and Rose v. Switzerland, is not final, but Switzerland has not said if it will appeal.
The man is Hungarian and the woman has Swiss and French nationalities. Both are over age 55. They argued that changing their names in France and Hungary would be too difficult, and she also argued that as a senior administrator in the Swiss federal government she is well known under the name she had before her marriage, so she should not be required to change her name. The two decided that he would take her name but the law stipulates that it must be added after his own. She kept her name, unchanged, when they married in 2003.
Problems arose when he tried to use the name Losonci alone.
There was no cocaine in this import
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -Magnetic Resonance Symmetry (MRS), the technique behind MRI scans done in hospitals could well be adopted by customs officials, if Swiss researchers in Lausanne and Geneva have their way. MRS has been shown by the group to be useful for scanning large cargoes and spotting cocaine that is being smuggled in wine bottles without having to open or disturb the cargo container.
A man in the UK reportedly died in 2009 as a result of unwittingly consuming cocaine-laced wine, but customs officials have a tough job spotting such bottles, or have had until now. They must carry out drug-panel tests on open bottles, but “first, contaminated cargo can be overlooked, since it is not possible to check a large number of samples,” writes Giulio Gambarota of EPFL in the Wiley Online Library.
“Second, cargo with expensive wine cannot be systematically sampled at a reasonable cost. Thus, a ‘non-invasive’ approach is of interest, as it would allow for an increase in sampling rate, without alterations to the cargo itself.”
The research work showed that “dissolved cocaine can be detected in intact wine bottles, on a standard clinical MR scanner” in about a minute, making it the option of choice, writes the lead author.
Creditors, employees would have less protection, companies could more easily revive
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A contentious Swiss law could soon end, if the Federal Council has its way. The government Wednesday 8 September announced it wants to end the obligation for a company taking over a bankrupt one to take on all the employees of the failed firm. The matter now moves to parliament.
The idea behind the change, inspired by the failure of Swissair, would be to make it easier for a bankrupt company to restart under new ownership.
New aviation MBA programme takes off in Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The latest in a string of newly created MBA programmes in the region has been announced jointly by the International Air Transport Association (Iata) and the University of Geneva (Unige).
The new Executive MBA programme in aviation management, the first in Switzerland, will include coursework in international aviation law, aviation and the environment and airline financing. The programme begins in September 2010.
Professionals from the Iata Training and Development Institute, as well as from the Unige MBA programme will likely be the first to participate.
The announcement comes a day after the University of Lausanne, the HEC and the Tepper Institute in the US announced they were setting up an assets and wealth management MBA, and the AISTS in Lausanane announced two new sports management graduate programmes in conjunction with several universities in the Lake Geneva region.
