Switzerland Today
Greetings from Zurich!
The dust has started to settle on the dramatic collapse and takeover of Switzerland’s second largest bank at the weekend.
Now the autopsy of Credit Suisse’s fall from grace and eventual demise begins in earnest.
In the news: Bank jobs, lawyers sharpen their knives and online hate speech
- Credit Suisse employs 16,000 people in Switzerland, and many are worrying whether they will be part of the new mega-UBS.
- Lawyers are circling the hasty UBS takeover of Credit Suisse, egged on by investors and shareholders who are crying foul of the deal.
- More than 160 items of online hate were spotted by the Federal Commission Against Racism’s reporting platform last year.
Credit Suisse – the dirty laundry
More fascinating snippets of information are appearing on the build-up to the dramatic rescue of Credit Suisse by its rival UBS at the weekend.
The Financial Times lands a blow-by blow account of the days leading up to the historic takeover.
The article contains some bizarre trivia, but the loss of a ‘too big to fail’ bank and an iconic Swiss institution is anything but trivial.
The government invoked emergency powers to force the deal through and it now has six months to present a Bill to parliament on the matter.
As I mentioned yesterday, some parliamentarians want an emergency debate on the safety of the Swiss financial sector.
Among their gripes is the insistence by Credit Suisse on paying bonuses to staff. Parliament may have a say on that issue as early as next month.
Montreux tragedy
Justice officials have wrapped up their investigation of a family suicide that took place in Montreux last year.
Five members of the same family, including two children, jumped from the balcony of their high-rise apartment block last year.
Four of them died, including an eight-year-old girl. Her brother, 15, survived the fall and is being cared for by the canton Vaud authorities.
No charges have been brought because the main suspects behind the suicide died during the incident.
It appears that the mother of the two children and her sister were the ringleaders, with powerful and paranoid personalities.
They apparently organised and planned the mass suicide jump in advance, officials say.
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