Government crisis management improved

A parliamentary report says the cabinet is better prepared for crises than a year ago, when it was slammed for its handling of the financial crisis and bailout of UBS.

But it said it was disappointed that no legal action had been taken against top members of UBS, which was bailed out by the government in 2008 and later became embroiled in a tax spat with the United States.

The report by parliament’s control committees said they would have liked “more energetic action” against UBS. Cabinet rejected pursuing legal action against the bank.

But the government had accepted most of the recommendations set out by the committees in their highly critical report of May 2010, the report said, and ministers were now better prepared and able to recognise crises earlier.

An important move had been, for example, an improvement in communication with Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority Finma, it noted.

But it found leadership on some issues in the seven-member cabinet was still lacking, although coordination between ministers had generally improved since new members had joined.

As for UBS itself, the committees found that the bank’s transparency report into the crisis – which had been ordered by the committees – was not totally satisfactory. The government should have been involved, they added, and the experts more independent.