Tag Archives: Swiss Markets and News

The information behind Italy’s request came from an earlier probe into Credit Suisse (Keystone) Italian financial crime investigators have asked the Swiss authorities for help in tracking down the beneficial owners of €6.7 billion (CHF7.4 billion) held in Switzerland. The information came to light during an investigation by the Milan authorities into the activities of Credit Suisse. In a statementexternal link issued on...

SECO director Ineichen-Fleisch defended the agency’s handling of the arms deal. The head of a Swiss federal office says its handling of export permits for arms manufacturers is improving in the wake of a criminal probe into past shipments. An internal review cleared a federal employee of wrongdoing after prosecutors questioned the handling of a Bernese arms manufacturer’s requests to ship weapons to Kazakhstan in 2008...

Swiss watch sales abroad have stabilised so far this year (Keystone) Pharmaceutical and chemical goods pushed Swiss exports to record highs in the first half of this year. The value of goods sold abroad peaked at CHF109.6 billion ($105 billion) in the first six months of 2017 – a 4.4% rise on the previous year. Swiss exports were further boosted by resurgence in demand from China that saw a 20% increase in value of...

A former Credit Suisse banker pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges of aiding Americans in hiding millions of dollars from US tax authorities. Credit Suisse was fined in 2014 for helping US tax avoiders. Susanne Rüegg-Meier, who worked in the Zurich office of Credit Suisse between 2002 and 2011, entered the guilty plea while on trial in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, for conspiring to defraud the United...

Swiss Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann on Tuesday expressed satisfaction with his two days of meetings with senior Trump administration officials, capping efforts to boost cooperation between Switzerland and the United States on education, jobs and trade. He also invited Ivanka Trump,  the daughter and adviser to US President Donald Trump, and other Trump administration officials to visit Switzerland so that...

© Robert Kneschke | Dreamstime 20 Minuten. Switzerland’s Federal Council wants to introduce new measures to lower prices in Switzerland to curb cross-border shopping, something that it says hurts Swiss businesses. Minister for Economic Affairs, Johann Schneider-Ammann, said in an interview with the newspaper Schweiz am Wochenende that he’s working on a package of measures to tackle high retail prices in Switzerland. He...

Swiss authorities have been targeting money laundering (Keystone) A massive money laundering case unfolded on Tuesday in a Swiss cantonal court where an Englishman, his wife and a financial adviser were found guilty in an elaborate multimillion-franc scheme. The district courtexternal link in the canton of Vaud sentenced the unidentified Englishman to a year in prison on charges of laundering nearly CHF7 million ($7.34...

An international meeting on transparency and exchange of tax data is underway in the Swiss city of Geneva. The five-day gathering of the Global Forum peer review group is to examine the implementation of so-called group requests and the issue of the identification of beneficial owners, according to the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters. “This meeting confirms that Switzerland supports the...

© Sam74100 | Dreamstime At 1 June 2017, 3,650 empty homes, of which 2,655 were for rent and 995 for sale, were on the market in Vaud. This brought the vacancy rate to 0.9%, a rise of 0.1% compared to the year before. This rise follows an increase of 0.1% in 2016 from a rate of 0.7% in 2015. The market is considered balanced when the vacancy rate reaches 1.5%. The last time it was above this mark in Vaud was in 1999....

A poster in a Swiss shop window advertises the sale of legal cannabis The rising popularity of marijuana that doesn’t make you high – a product known as “cannabis light” or “CBD cannabis” – is causing a headache for Swiss politicians. It is sold in many Swiss shops and generates millions of Swiss francs in sales. Swiss authorities now ban growing, selling or consuming cannabis with a THC content, the main psychoactive...