Tag Archives: 3.) Swiss Info

Swissport has been hit hard by the adverse impact of coronavirus on the aviation industry. Keystone / Stephanie Lecocq A consortium of investors has agreed a €800 million (CHF860 million) bailout of Chinese-owned airport services company Swissport. Revenues at the company have nosedived since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The consortium of US and British private equity firms and banks will buy out the majority stake currently held by Chinese conglomerate...

London’s financial district. Britain and the EU are negotiating financial regulation post-Brexit, with Switzerland caught in the middle. Keystone / Hannah Mckay On a Monday morning, just over a year ago, investment firms across the EU found they were no longer allowed to trade on the Swiss stock exchange. It happened almost overnight — simply because Brussels refused to extend a regulatory “equivalence” deal with Switzerland, which gave each side free access to the...

Keystone / Walter Bieri Major Swiss bank Credit Suisse has agreed to pay $15.5 million (CHF14.6 million) to settle a dispute with shareholders in the United States, according to court filings on Friday. The plaintiffs, led by four pension funds, accused Credit Suisse of defrauding shareholders about its risk appetite and management before taking $1 billion of writedowns on souring debt. The bank had boasted at the time of “comprehensive” risk controls and “binding”...

The Swiss travel and tourism sector has been hard hit by the effects of the coronavirus crisis. Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. German tour operator TUI is to close eight of its 62 branches in Switzerland with the loss of around 70 jobs, owing to the effects of the coronavirus crisis. “We are assuming we will organise around 70% fewer trips than originally planned this summer,” says TUI Switzerland’s managing director Philipp von Czapiewski...

In this episode of our Inside Geneva podcast, we look at the role of the World Trade Organization as it chooses a new leader amid challenging times. Every country has to trade: to sell goods, and to import others that aren’t produced at home. But who makes the rules around trade? Host Imogen Foulkes is joined by former World Trade Organization (WTO) official Peter Ungphakorn, former Reuters correspondent and trade journalist Tom Miles, and analyst Daniel Warner, to...

World leaders have been addressing an online international summit on jobs and Covid-19. Keystone / Sandra Steins A new international platform is to be launched in Geneva to anticipate the effects of societal changes amidst the Covid-19 crisis, Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga said on Wednesday. Switzerland is supporting this initiative and calls on states to help the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in the face of the current jobs crisis, she added. The new...

In recent years locals in Lucerne have protested against overtourism in their city. © Keystone / Alexandra Wey Some popular travel destinations have enjoyed the break – however temporary – from tourist crowds following Covid-19 restrictions. Others hope the hordes will return soon. Switzerland had not yet opened its border with Italy when its southern neighbour unexpectedly announced that Swiss citizens could enter the country starting on June 3. A day later, Sylvain...

Lekkerland supplied some 2,700 retailers in Switzerland. © Keystone / Christian Beutler A company that supplies Swiss motorway service stations and convenience stores has gone into liquidation after failing to find new investors. Some 144 jobs at Lekkerland Switzerland are now at risk of disappearing by the end of the year. The company on Monday said it was concentrating on finding new suppliers for the 2,700 stores that it currently services. It is also making...

Defining the exact nature of sustainable finance and measuring its performance is an ongoing process. Keystone / Guillaume Horcajuelo The Swiss financial centre wants to take a lead in ethical investing. NGOs, however, fear the banks are more interested in cashing in than saving the planet. One thing everyone agrees on is the need for a universal definition of sustainable finance and measures to oversee the sector. Sustainable finance invests in the environmental,...

Queuing up near Vevey on Lake Geneva. © Keystone / Cyril Zingaro Fuel consumption and emissions limits for new cars in Switzerland missed their target in 2019 for the fourth year in a row. This resulted in sanctions totalling CHF78 million for car importers. Last year, the 314,000 new cars registered in Switzerland spat out CO2 emissions of about 138.1 grams per kilometre, a rise of 0.2% on 2018, the Federal Office for Energy said on Thursday. This means new cars...