The culprit was a head of strategy at Roche, which is headquartered in Switzerland at the Roche tower in Basel. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has fined Lorenz Erne, a former senior executive at Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche, for insider trading and ordered him to pay back the ill-gotten profits. Erne accepted the accusations and agreed to the terms of a settlement with the SEC, according to an SEC documentexternal link published on Thursday....
Read More »Swiss financial sector shines in international survey
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and a key financial hub for the world. Switzerland’s financial centre has a positive reputation abroad, despite a string of scandals in 2018, according to a 19-nation survey conducted by Presence Suisse. The reputation and quality of Swiss banks were rated as “good” to “very good” by most respondents in the international poll of 12,767 people. The ethics and responsibility of the Swiss banking sector are also well regarded....
Read More »Novartis rejects suspected data manipulation in US
At its annual press conference in January, Novartis focused on “transformative treatments” – a therapy based on the belief that illness may be caused by the subconscious influences. Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has dismissed criticism that it allegedly withheld information about animal testing data inaccuracies to United States authorities for a human gene therapy. Novartisexternal link said its subsidiary in...
Read More »Chinese-owned Swissmetal sold to Swiss investors
Swissmetal has a long history beginning in the second half of the 19th century. But the company came under growing pressure in the 1980s as a result of international competition. The cash-strapped Baoshida Swissmetal company has been taken over by a group of Swiss investors six years after it was sold to a Chinese group. The newly-founded Swissmetal Industries, backed by two private investors, said it had acquired the...
Read More »Pressure returns on Swiss franc amid global uncertainty
The Swiss franc has started to appreciate in value against other currencies, including the euro, once again. One knock-on effect of the escalating trade war between the United States and China is that the Swiss franc is becoming more attractive for investors – putting pressure on the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to come to the defence of the safe haven currency. For much of July a euro bought at least CHF1.10. But the...
Read More »US tourists flocking to Switzerland amid economic boom
Admiring the view above Lake Lucerne, central Switzerland. American visitors to Switzerland have increased by over 40% in five years and represent a major growth motor for the tourism industry, annual statistics show. Chinese and Indian tourists are often seen as the future of Swiss tourism, the SonntagsZeitung and Le Matin Dimanche newspapers reported at the weekend. However, they say, “North America is the real growth...
Read More »Glencore suffers $350m hit as cobalt prices decline
Congolese diaspora protesting against Glencore last summer. Glencore has taken a $350 million hit because of falling cobalt prices as the problems facing its African copper business continue to pile up. The Switzerland-based miner and commodity trader has been grappling with a string of issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it operates two copper mines, and in Zambia, where it owns another asset. Dozens of...
Read More »Nestlé invests CHF99 million in factory expansion in Indonesia
The ground breaking ceremony of Nestlé’s fourth production plant in Indonesia in 2013. The Swiss food giant has announced plans to invest CHF99 million (around $100 million) to expand three factories in Indonesia. The goal is to increase Nestlé’s production capacity in the country by 25%, according to a company announcement on Wednesday. The recipients of the funds will be three production plants in Karawang (West...
Read More »Switzerland’s first integrated crypto asset exchange launched
Smart Valor was launched in 2017 and is based in ‘Swiss Crypto Valley’ of Zug near Zurich. Smart Valor, the country’s first integrated cryptocurrency exchange offering custody, trading and brokerage, has gone live with nine crypto-fiat trading pairs. The assets on Zug-based platformexternal link, that was launched in 2017 as part of the Thomson Reuters Incubator, includes crypto currencies and security tokens. For the...
Read More »Switzerland assists Japanese probe into Carlos Ghosn
A visitor to Switzerland: Carlos Ghosn attending the 2018 World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland Canton Zurich’s public prosecutor is assisting the Japanese authorities in an inquiry related to bank accounts associated with Carlos Ghosn, the former leading auto executive. Tokyo prosecutors sent a request for legal assistance to Switzerland in January, a spokesperson for the country’s Federal Office of Justice...
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