BERN, SWITZERLAND – PostFinance, the financial arm of Swiss Post, continues to pull in new customers as the country’s two large banks cope with the fallout from legal problems with the US and a strong franc that is hurting their revenues. PostFinance Wednesday 27 July announced that it acquired 43,000 new customers in the first half of 2011 and 103,000 new accounts, bringing the totals to 2.7m customers and 4.2m accounts.
Customer assets totalled CHF90 billion.
Profits rose nearly 20 percent to CHF327 million and the company created 130 fulltime jobs, with plans to add another 50 before the year ends.
The positive performance contrasts sharply with gloomy news from the country’s two big banks. UBS Tuesday 26 July announced a 49 percent drop in revenues due in large part to falling income from investment banking’s weak performance with stocks bonds, commodities and currencies. The bank plans to cut costs, which will mean job losses, by up to CHF2b in the next two to three years.
Credit Suisse announced 15 July it is being investigated by the US Justice Department, which has indicted eight former employees for helping wealthy Americans hide money in Switzerland. The bank announces its first half 2011 results tomorrow, 28 July.
UBS consumption indicator at its lowest level this year
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Swiss banking giant UBS AG warned of job losses after a strong Swiss franc and “economic uncertainty” led to a near halving in second-quarter profits.
The Zurich-based bank said it would slash costs over the next two to three years but declined to comment on how many jobs will be cut, saying only it will take a look at the restructuring later this year.
During the presentation of its second quarter results this morning, UBS said its net and pre-tax profits had dropped, and lowered its annual earning forecasts. Pre-tax profits UBS said, fell to CHF1.7 billion from CHF2.2 billion in the previous quarter.
“Having reached a high point for the year in May, the UBS consumption indicator fell significantly by 0.40 points to 1.48 in June, the lowest level this year.”
Group revenues was CHF 7.2 billion, down 14% due to “lower client activity and currency movements,” said the report.
Full report: UBS consumption indicator at its lowest level this year and UBS second-quarter profit before tax CHF 1.7 billion; Group net new money CHF 8.7 billion; tier 1 capital ratio 18.1%.
News follows rumours of two big Swiss bank staff cuts
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Credit Suisse issued a statement Friday that it was formally notified 14 July that it is being investigated by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for helping wealthy Americans avoid paying taxes through undeclared offshore accounts.
Four Credit Suisse bankers, only one of whom is still with the bank, were named earlier this year by the DOJ as the target of investigations, and Credit Suisse said it was cooperating with US authorities.
The new investigation follows one by the US government that led to UBS providing the names of more than 4,000 US clients under the terms of a special treaty between Switzerland and the United States.
The bank’s official statement:
As previously disclosed, Credit Suisse has been responding to requests for information, including subpoenas, in an investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and other US authorities.
The investigation concerns historical Private Banking services provided on a cross-border basis to US persons. As part of this process, on July 14, 2011, Credit Suisse received a letter notifying it that it is a target of the DoJ investigation.
It has been reported that the US authorities are conducting a broader industry inquiry. Subject to our Swiss legal obligations, we will continue to cooperate with the US authorities in an effort to resolve these matters.
Ed. note: the Financial Times carries a lengthy story with background
Rumors have been flying all week that both Credit Suisse and UBS are planning large job cuts, with the Financial Times saying Friday that sources close to the situation back this up, but for the moment both banks are refusing to comment on the stories.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Swiss bank UBS surprised the media and business worlds at the end of last week by appointing former German central banker Axel Weber as chairman, starting in 2013. Reflection on the implications have been surfacing in Swiss media today and yesterday.
Reaction has generally been positive, in part at the speed with which the appointment was made. Weber was widely tipped to be chairman of Germany’s Deutschebank.
Swissinfo, in English, takes note of the Ethos Foundation’s objection to his initial salary of CHF2 million plus 200 shares, and notes that his first major task is likely to be finding a replacement for Oswald Grueber as chief executive officer.
Le Temps talks about his early days as an economics professor, then his role as a near-member of Angela Merkel’s government, but also his continuing ability to surprise, as a man who doesn’t do what others expect.
Business news group Agefi points out that he is joining a bank that continues to face difficult market conditions, and he’ll have to work to earn his keep.
Weber, in an interview with Zurich-based NZZ that ran Saturday, talks about the ties and similarities between German and Swiss banking.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – A Swiss spokesman for the new State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF), Mario Tuor, has confirmed that Switzerland and the US have been holding “informal talks” to explore solutions to the problem of undeclared assets held by Americans in Swiss bank accounts, but he told Reuters Friday 10 June that many of the details appearing in the media jump the gun and can’t be confirmed.
The rumours have been flying for the past two days, with Reuters, Bloomberg and the New York Times vying for scoops and exclusive information and ultimately giving credence to the stories. The newspaper quotes three unnamed sources; US government officials leaked the information to the newspaper that the two countries were expected to come to an agreement in July: “As part of the agreement under discussion, known as a global resolution, US government agencies would invite the banks to pay a fine, exit their undeclared offshore banking businesses for Americans, and turn over client names to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Justice Department.” In exchange, says the paper, In exchange, “the agencies would drop an ongoing investigation into the banks.”
US officials have often in the past used the New York Times to leak information and their position, in advance, on Swiss-US tax and financial discussions.
Tuor told Reuters that “the two sides had exchanged ideas but that he could not confirm the July date, whether the two sides were eyeing a multi-bank solution, or any other details mentioned” in an article published Thursday by Reuters. “‘There were several sets of talks, one of which was on the sidelines of the IMF’s spring meeting and was about the Fatca, though ideas were also exchanged about finding a solution for the past,’” Tuor told the news agency.
Fatca is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act adopted by the US at the end of 2010, which goes into effect in 2013, and which will require non-US banks to provide the US with considerable data on the accounts of Americans and foreigners with US assets. The goal is to catch people who are illegally avoiding pay US tax.
A side effect of the US adopting Fatca, however, has been a growing reluctance on the part of banks in Switzerland in particular, but also banks elsewhere, to keep US citizens or foreign residents in the US as clients. Some accounts have been closed, creating a string of financial management problems for people who are not hiding from the IRS.
Ayat Suliman’s brother brought an unexploded cluster munition into their house in Samarra, Iraq. The munition exploded and caused burns to form over 65% of Ayat’s body. In Iraq, the United States used at least 1,206 clusters, containing more than 200,000 submunitions; this number represents 4 percent of the total number of air-delivered weapons used by the Coalition (text, image: Magnus Fröderberg for Cluster Munitions Coalition)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss government Monday 6 June agreed, as expected, to ratify the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). It signed the treaty in Dublin in 2008, along with 106 other countries, but needed to take the convention through several stages before ratification.
A key step was the revision of Switzerland’s war material act of 1996 to add penal provisions. “This act will be complemented by a ban on cluster munitions,” the Swiss Federal Council said in a statement.
“There will also be a ban on the financing of prohibited war material. Such material already includes nuclear weapons, biological and capital weapons and antipersonnel mines. Now cluster munitions will be added to the list.”
Ratification would force banks to completely dis-invest in cluster munitions companies
The move comes 10 days after a report issued by Handicap International drew attention to what it called the “Hall of Shame” of banks that invest in companies which produce cluster munitions. The two large Swiss banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, figured on the list, along with 14 other Swiss financial institutions. Both vehemently denied that they finance cluster munitions, pointing out that many of the investments listed were made before they tightened their policies in 2010 to avoid future investments in the large conglomerates which are often behind the manufacturers.
The report says, based on publicly available information, that 166 financial institutions in 15 countries have financial interests in eight companies that produce cluster munitions.
Handicap International says progress has been made in the financing area, but far more needs to be done.
Switzerland spends CHF16 billion a year on demining
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The Wall Street Journal is creating a stir in the international banking world with its report Thursday 26 May that Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, plans to move its investment bank out of Switzerland, perhaps to London, Hong Kong or Singapore. The move would in theory allow it to escape tough new capital requirements for Swiss banks that were approved 19 May by Swiss parliamentary commissions, with a final parliamentary debate scheduled this summer. The new regulations, if passed, could start to go into effect in 2012.
Banks worldwide are struggling to prepare for tougher international standards under the Basel III agreement, but Switzerland has taken its capital requirements a step further, and UBS has expressed concern in the past about the timeframe for the requirements, suggesting a corporate reorganization might be the answer. Its comments have sparked much speculation that at least parts of the bank might be based elsewhere, but the implications for regulating the UBS group if part of it leaves Switzerland remain fuzzy.
Reuters reports that UBS and Finma, the Swiss bank regulatory body, are offering no comment on the WSJ article, but it notes that a UBS spokesperson called it “speculation”.
The investment bank is the arm of UBS that required a CHF39 billion bailout by the Swiss government at the end of 2008 and in early 2009.
The
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The finance commission of the Swiss parliament’s lower house has given its approval to new rules that would require Switzerland’s two largest banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, to increase their capital bases substantially above the amount required by Basel III global requirements.
Basel III rules were established by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and have been the subject of heated international debate in recent months.
The change in Swiss banking law, proposed to parliament by the governing Federal Council (cabinet), went through an upper house commission Monday.
It will now be debated in both houses this summer and, if approved, could be implemented starting in 2012, with a six-year period to gradually implement it.
The Swiss National Bank has thrown its support behind the tough new Swiss law, which was written after the government’s 2008 bailout of UBS during the global financial crisis.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - International financial media are greeting first quarter figures from UBS with gloomy headlines, despite higher profits posted by the bank in its first quarter results Tuesday morning. UBS published figures showing pre-tax Q1 profits of CHF1.8 million, up over the previous quarter (CHF1.7b), but 18 percent lower than the CHF2.2b Q1 profits in 2010.
Bloomberg, oddly, initially carried a headline of “UBS posts decline in quarterly net on lower securities earnings” but changed the heading to the more upbeat “UBS attracts highest inflows since 2007 as profit tops estimates”.
The bank’s note that net new money is up, “with positive net flows recorded across all of our asset-gathering businesses confirming the return of client trust and confidence”. New money rose from CHF7.1 billion in Q4 2010 to CHF22.3b. The issue of new money has been watched closely by analysts in recent months. Reuters recalls that “clients pulled nearly 400 billion francs from the world’s second-largest wealth manager in recent years after UBS was bailed out following huge writedowns on toxic assets and was hit by US charges that it helped wealthy Americans dodge tax.”
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss post office has opened a new web site for employees to encourage whistleblowing, particularly of a financial nature.
Swiss Post has 40,000 employees, and it already has a functioning programme for employees to announce threats against staff members, theft and other property crimes.
The programme is used by 16 people a day on average, according to TSR.
The new plan allows employees to report irregularities anonymously if they wish to do so. It covers corruption, conflict of interest, money laundering, falsifying documents and fraudulent use of data.
Swiss Post joins the rank of other Swiss companies that have added whistleblowing programmes in recent months, including bank UBS.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss bank UBS moved back into profitability in 2010, ending the year with net profits of CHF7.2 billion, a turnaround from 2009 when it had a loss of CHF2.7b, and the first time since 2006 that the bank has been profitable for a full year.
The bank published its Q4 and 2010 results Tuesday 8 February.
A significant change is that the bank has begun to attract new money, after a period of outflows in the wake of the bank’s bailout by the Swiss government in December 2008, but also the bank’s problems with the IRS, the US tax authority. The US Treasury dropped charges against UBS in October 2010, after a review of more than 4,000 accounts by Swiss authorities under a US-Swiss treaty.
Net new money was CHF7.1b in the last quarter of the year, the second quarter in a row with a net inflow.
Initial reports government staying at hotel were wrong
Post Hotel, Davos, Switzerland, Thursday morning 27 January: a sculpture by artist Ram Sutarn, 84, of India stands in front of the hotel. (photo, ©2011, World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo by Andy Mettler
Davos, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Details are unverified and sketchy, but the Swiss free newspaper 20 Minutes has reported that an explosion occurred Thursday morning 27 January in the Hotel de la Poste in Davos and that anti-WEF groups sent an e-mail claiming responsibility and saying a second bomb could go off. Police in Davos state they cannot say what caused the minor explosion but that there have been no injuries.
The hotel houses a group from bank UBS who are attending the World Economic Forum, including Chairman Oswald Gruebel. 20 Minutes initially reported that members of the Swiss Federal Council were in the hotel, but they are staying at another one owned by the same company.
The group, in its e-mail to 20 Minutes, makes it clear it was targeting UBS and the Swiss government.
According to 20 Minutes, the authors of the bomb say it was scheduled to go off at 06:00 to spare employees. It went off at 009:00.
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.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - UBS denies as “completely unfounded and without merit” charges 24 November by Bernard Madoff’s trustee, says Bloomberg, which quotes an e-mail received from the bank. Bernard Madoff’s court-appointed trustee Irving Picard filed a sealed complaint against the bank in Manhattan, New York in the US Tuesday. The lawyer is seeking $2 billion from the Swiss bank and several others, “alleging 23 counts of financial fraud and misconduct against UBS AG and related entities and individuals for collaboration in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.”
Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009 for fraudulent activities that stole more than $65 billion from investors around the world.
Picard’s court complaint is sealed, he says on the Madoff Investment Securities Liquidation web site, because of UBS’s insistence on confidentiality.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s two biggest banks, UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group, need to increase their capital reserves beyond international standards, said on 4 October, a committee of public-private experts appointed by the Swiss Federal Council to address the issue of “too big to fail.”
The Committee of Experts believes that both banks are indeed “too big to fail,” but that measures should be put in motion to prevent any possible collapse (not only of the banks but of the Swiss economy).
The new proposal, backed by the Swiss National Bank, SNB, and the country’s financial regulator Finma; goes beyond the Basel III rules agreed to last month by the 27 member countries of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
The Basel III rules establish reserves of 7 percent in common equity and 10.5 percent in total capital, while the new proposal require much higher reserves by 2019; 10 percent and 19 percent respectively.
The committee also proposed specific oversight measures in core areas including liquidity, risk diversification and organisation.
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.
Jailed banker claims US Dept of Justice hushed investigations into “super-rich and politically powerful” US figures with Swiss bank accounts
WRS Birkenfeld audio interview 26 August 2010
Bradley Birkenfeld
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Bradley Birkenfeld is not taking his imprisonment for conspiring to defraud the US government sitting down quietly. The former UBS private banking manager in the US began serving a 40-month prison sentence in Minersville, Pennsylvania in January 2010. Birkenfeld accuses the US Department of Justice of having done a deal with his former UBS boss, Martin Liechti, in an interview with WRS radio Friday morning 27 August. The reason, he argues, was to protect “super-rich and politically powerful” US citizens. The DOJ, when contacted by WRS, refused to comment on his allegations.
The interview comes the day after Switzerland said it is delivering data on more than 2,000 suspect banks accounts, to the US government at its request.
Birkenfeld, who has on a number of occasions argued that it is unfair he is the only UBS banker to be jailed in connection with the investigations, told Reuters in April 2010 that the Swiss bank should be investigated further by the DOJ, saying “Pardon the expression, but they should have some balls here.” He has also been busy asking President Barack Obama to commute his sentence and trying to convince the IRS he should be paid as a whistleblower; in April Business Week ran a lengthy story detailing his history as a whistleblower in this and other cases, noting that the prosecutor who convinced the judge to jail him says he does not qualify.
Martin Liechti, onetime head of wealth management for UBS in North America, was arrested for questioning in the US in April 2008. In July 2008 he took the Fifth Amendment to protect himself, refusing to testify at a US Senate hearing. UBS announced at the start of the Senate hearings in July 2008 that it was shutting down its US wealth management activity.
Liechti, a Swiss citizen, remained in jail until August 2008 and then, unlike Birkenfeld, he was released. He returned to Switzerland, but officially lost his job with UBS in March 2009, when the bank took disciplinary measures against 24 of its offshore business employees.
Earlier this month, according to Tagesanzeiger (8 August) and Finews, Martin Liechti recently began working as a business coach.
John Doe case likely to be dropped by US, says Bern
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - Data is being handed over by Switzerland to the United States for approximately half of the 4,450 UBS bank accounts for which the US requested data in 2009, Bern announced Thursday afternoon 26 August.
According to the terms of a bilateral treaty signed in August 2009 Swiss authorities reviewed the bank accounts for possible evidence of fraud and delivered data in cases that met precise criteria agreed to by the two countries.
The official statement from the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) notes:
Insofar as the decisions of the FTA are legally binding, the data was supplied to the United States. This occurred in around half of the cases. Despite the delay caused by the Federal Administrative Court’s ruling, the data delivery will be largely concluded by autumn 2010.
Talks are being held between the contracting parties regarding the final stage of the agreement’s implementation. Both parties are optimistic that the US authorities will receive most of the agreed account information within a reasonable period of time and that the US authorities will definitively withdraw the civil action (John Doe Summons) brought against UBS.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s UBS bank reported second quarter net profits of CHF2.01 billion Tuesday 27 July, higher than forecast and widely seen as a sign of the bank’s recovering health. Earnings were CHF9.19b.
UBS was bailed out by the Swiss federal government in late 2008, at the start of the global economic crisis. It was given, along with the country’s other large bank, Credit Suisse, a good report by federal financial regulators Friday 25 July when they published Swiss bank stress test results. Client outflows, which began to increase in 2008, were at their lowest level, CHF5 billion, in nearly two years. Chairman Otto Gruebel, brought in to turn the bank around after its bailout, says he is confident the client outflows can be stopped this year.
Shares in the bank rose strongly, by more than 8 percent, on the news Tuesday morning.
Links to other sites: Financial Times, Reuters, UBS
Swiss banks’ stress tests shows “both banks would still have a solid capital base” in case of global recession
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Credit Suisse and UBS, Switzerland’s two large banks, would both have capital ratios of at least 8 percent, should they be subject to stresses from a global economic recession, Finma, the country’s financial regulatory body, said Friday evening 23 July.
Finma published the results of its stress tests on the two banks, conducted since 2008, in parallel with announcements by the European Union and 91 of its largest banks about the results of EU bank stress tests.
Seven of the 91 European banks failed the stress tests, five “caja” or savings banks in Spain, Germany’s Hypo Real Estate and Greece’s ATE bank, a result that led, according to the Financial Times, to investors signalling “their distrust of the assumptions underlying the tests and the surprisingly small number of banks to fail the tests.”
Finma explained in publishing its results that the stress tests were developed with the Swiss National Bank, the country’s central bank. “Analyses of this kind are a key component of its normal supervisory activities. Finma requires Credit Suisse and UBS to have sufficient excess capital and liquidity to enable them to absorb unforeseen events at any time. The large banks should therefore have a tier 1 ratio of at least 8 percent even under such stress scenarios. If this requirement were not met, Finma would work with the institution in question to consider reducing its risk positions and/or strengthening its capital base and then instruct suitable measures.”
The stress tests check the banks’ capacity to deal with specific scenarios. “The latest scenario covers different regions of the world over a two-year period. It assumes a global recession, accompanied by a slump in prices on the financial and real estate markets,” Finma says in its press release. “Developments in Europe have also been added, with specific and very sharp shocks assumed for some European countries. In view of UBS and Credit Suisse’s relatively low exposure to these countries, however, the impact of these particular shocks turns out to be small.”
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - A group of would-be thieves who tried to rob the UBS in Rolle, canton Vaud, made a speedy getaway and succeeded in escaping from police despite a high-speed chase in the early hours of Monday 19 July.
Police were contacted by several neighbours who heard unusual noises and noticed several masked invidividuals around the cash machine at the bank, at 03:20. One of the thieves was trying to remove the machine, using a cable and a Cherokee Jeep stolen shortly before the robbery, but didn’t succeed. The group fled as police arrived on the scene.
They drove off in two cars whose make is not known, say police. A large manhunt was set up immediately by the regional police centre, and they were spotted between Gland and Coppet on the A1 autoroute, traveling at high speed.
A police chase ensued, but they outdistanced the police and were lost heading in the direction of Geneva.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the police at +41 21 644 4444 or to go to the nearest police station.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The cliffhanger votes are over: with 81 for, 63 against and 47 abstaining, the lower house of Parliament has voted not to put to a popular referendum the treaty covering 4,450 UBS bank accounts. A final lower house vote scheduled for Friday will now not go ahead and the Federal Council can proceed with the treaty’s requirement to review and hand over data on 4,450 cases of suspected US tax fraud.
The lower house’s approval, following that of the upper house and the backing of the Federal Council, means the government can meet the treaty’s 31 August deadline to review data and deliver it.
Waiting on the Parliament
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The parliamentary vote on the treaty between Switzerland and the US over UBS bank accounts comes down to the line today.
A joint-houses commission composed of 13 members of each house began to meet at 07:00 Thursday morning to decide yes or no, in favour or not of holding a popular referendum on the treaty. Their decision Thursday 17 June will be put to a vote immediately in both houses, where there will be no discussion.
If the vote is in favour of the option of holding a referendum, the treaty as it stands will be impossible to implement, for reasons of timing. It calls for Switzerland to review 4,450 UBS bank accounts for possible tax fraud and deliver the results to the US by 31 August.
A Swiss popular referendum has 100 days to collect enough signatures to call for a vote. These must then be verified and, if the vote goes ahead, time must be all0wed to schedule it. At the earliest, a vote could be held in September, say analysts, or more likely, later in 2010 and as late as February 2011.
Lower house of Parliament insists on referendum, motion now goes to commission
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The lower house of the Swiss parliament Wednesday afternoon repeated its earlier vote in favour of a popular referendum on the Swiss-US treaty covering possibly fraudulent use of some UBS bank accounts.
The upper house earlier in the day refused to consider taking the treaty to the Swiss population. The motion now goes to a special commission that meets Thursday to try to find a political compromise.
The treaty, agreed to by the ruling seven-member Swiss Federal Council, has fallen victim to political negotiations over taxing bank bonuses and related banking issues.
Swiss parliament in session Photo®Swiss parliament
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The upper house of the Swiss parliament has said no to a popular referendum on the Swiss-US treaty covering 4,450 UBS bank accounts. A house commission voted 8-3 Wednesday morning 16 June against a motion to support the lower house’s option for a popular vote, and the commission’s minority agreed not to take the motion to the full upper house.
The option of a referendum now returns to the lower house, which is expected to vote on it Wednesday afternoon. If it votes yes, the measure must go to a reconciliation commission of the two houses.
Cliff-hanger continues over treaty as lower house says yes – but with option to put vote to national referendum
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The right-wing UDC party held to its promise and supported the US-Swiss treaty covering a US request for judicial assistance for 4,450 UBS bank accounts. The treaty passed, 81 in favour, 61 against – with 54 abstaining, mainly UDC members. The vote in favour comes with a rider, however, that the option for a popular vote on the treaty should be exercised, forcing the two houses to now work out a compromise solution there. A popular vote would prevent Switzerland from meeting the treaty obligation to review all 4,450 accounts for the US by 31 August 2010.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The outcome of the Swiss-US treaty covering 4,450 UBS bank accounts is unlikely to be decided before Monday or Tuesday, 15-16 June, following a recommendation from a lower house of Parliament commission to reject the treaty or to add a clause to the parliamentary project requiring a popular referendum vote on it. The lower house economic commission, which recommends action to the house as a whole, voted 14-12 Thursday morning against accepting the treaty.
A popular vote, which would take time to organize, would jeopardize the treaty, which requires Switzerland to act on the US request for judicial assistance by completing its review of the 4,450 cases and delivering information on the accounts by the end of August 2010.
Reconciliation committee will get it Wednesday to attempt political parties’ compromise
Swiss parliament in session Photo®Swiss parliament
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government’s painstaking efforts to come to a settlement with the US over the handling of 4,450 UBS bank accounts was dealt a serious blow Tuesday 8 June. The lower house of Parliament voted against the Swiss-US treaty 104 to 76, with 16 abstentions. The treaty must now go to a special committee of the two houses, which will try to find grounds for an agreement.
The US in 2009 asked for judicial assistance to obtain data about the accounts and their owners based on suspicions of tax fraud. Swiss banking secrecy laws normally prevent any data about bank accounts from being shared.
The upper house had approved the treaty last week.
Political tug of war
In the lower house the treaty, which covers one specific request for judicial assistance from the US, faced a left-right standoff over stronger control of the country’s two big banks, UBS and Credit Suisse. Socialists tied it to legislation that would limit bankers’ bonuses and a tougher policy on too-big-to-fail banks, moves that were firmly rejected by the right-wing UDC (People’s Party). The UDC is the largest party in the lower house, often a staunch defender of what it sees as Swiss cultural values, one of which is banking secrecy.
The parties of the centre have backed the treaty, saying it is in the national interest of Switzerland to do so, while insisting that it must be a one-time agreement that does not give ground on banking secrecy.
Switzerland’s banking secrecy laws are widely perceived to be linked to the right to privacy in Switzerland.
Year-long deadline to deliver the data looms
The treaty was drawn up in August 2009 and Switzerland has one year to review the bank accounts’ requests from the US and determine if the data should be delivered to the US Treasury Department. But a Swiss high court ruled in February that the federal government could not sign the treaty without consulting Parliament, which meant that the votes in the two houses would take place only in early June.
The parliamentary session ends 18 June and a “reconciliation” committee will meet only 9 June to try to hammer out an agreement that will allow the bill to pass a second vote, ensuring that the final days of the parliamentary session will be fraught with tension.
Links to other sites: Le Temps (Fre), NZZ (Ger), TSR (Fre) in Switzerland; Financial Times and New York Times, Corporate Justice blog discussion
Update 16:35 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The upper house of the Swiss parliament Thursday voted 31-11 in favour of the agreement between the US and Switzerland that will allow the Swiss to provide judicial assistance for 4,450 UBS bank account holders. The vote moves the treaty a step closer to approval: the lower house votes Monday. A yes vote faces a tougher time there.
The upper house (Conseil des Etats) vote is retroactive and applies to the specific cases where requests have been made. It does not apply to future requests, which would require legislative changes. The upper house also voted against putting the treaty to a popular vote and it refused to debate the government’s plans to put in place regulations for “too big to fail” banks.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites (Fre): Le Temps, RSR, Tribune de Geneve
The impact of changing tax laws
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Tribune de Geneve Thursday 27 May carries a feature story on the impact of the changing US tax collection system on Americans who live overseas, but also on Swiss who have worked in the US.
The article, entitled “US tax collector disgusts many dual nationals in Switzerland”, is linked to the upcoming 7 June debate in Parliament over the US-Swiss tax agreement covering UBS.
The article mentions several of the issues that have come up at US citizens’ meetings in Geneva, such as the 15% exit tax that must be paid by Americans who give up their citizenship, but it also points out that many Swiss who have worked in the US and did not declare income according to new IRS interpretations may be at risk for heavy penalties.
Background, GenevaLunch series on US citizen meetings over tax issues, in Geneva in 2009-2010
