Switzerland at risk of EU blacklist after Credit Suisse leak
21FEB2022
The fallout from a huge leak of Credit Suisse banking data threatened to damage Switzerland’s entire financial sector on Monday after the European parliament’s main political grouping raised the prospect of adding the country to a money-laundering blacklist.
The European People’s party (EPP), the largest political grouping of the European parliament, called for the EU to review its relationship with Switzerland and consider whether it should be added to its list of countries associated with a high risk of financial crime.
Experts said that such a move would be a disaster for Switzerland’s financial sector, which would face the kind of enhanced due diligence applied to transactions linked to rogue nations including Iran, Myanmar, Syria and North Korea.
“When Swiss banks fail to apply international anti-money-laundering standards properly, Switzerland itself becomes a high-risk jurisdiction,” said Markus Ferber, the coordinator on economic affairs for the EPP, which represents Europe’s centre-right political parties.
The fallout from a huge leak of Credit Suisse banking data threatened to damage Switzerland’s entire financial sector on Monday after the European parliament’s main political grouping raised the prospect of adding the country to a money-laundering blacklist.
Laundering money, huh? — setting aside grandfather clocks and chocolate, hasn’t that been the point of Switzerland for generations?
Switzerland has spent decades holding stolen Nazi wealth even after knowing who the original, usually Jewish, owners were. It was only a short step to helping oligarchs, dictators, drug dealers and tax cheats hide their wealth.
The European People’s party (EPP), the largest political grouping of the European parliament, called for the EU to review its relationship with Switzerland and consider whether it should be added to its list of countries associated with a high risk of financial crime.
Political bluster of course. The leak seems to concern a lot of legacy accounts, going back as far as 1940, likely overwhelmingly before the time the US rightfully took over the Swiss’ dirty busin… I mean, before the Swiss were encouraged to clean up their act. The declining ‚market share‘ here is plainly visible in the ‚rankings‘ the Tax Justice Network keeps publishing:
The sixth edition of the biennial Financial Secrecy Index sees Switzerland reduce its ranking to the third biggest enabler of financial secrecy in the world, marking the first time the country did not rank worst on the index since 2011. Despite escalating its contribution to global financial secrecy since the publication of the 2018 edition of the index, the US remained the second biggest enabler of financial secrecy in the world after Cayman overtook both the US and Switzerland to the top of the 2020 index. This marks the first time Cayman ranked first on the Financial Secrecy Index. The top 10 biggest enablers of financial secrecy in the world currently are:
Cayman Islands United States Switzerland Hong Kong Singapore Luxembourg Japan Netherlands British Virgin Islands United Arab Emirates
Perhaps Mr. Ferber should focus starting at the top of the rankings for the blacklist, although practical concerns may reign in here. Interestingly, two EU countries made it into the top ten, too. So looks a bit like a hitjob…
Despite escalating its contribution to global financial secrecy since the publication of the 2018 edition of the index, the US remained the second biggest enabler of financial secrecy in the world
For years, I heard the talking heads on bubblevision howl about “intrusive, burdensome, big gummit regulation” inhibiting Shinyland’s rightful place as the center of the financial universe. Apparently, in their eyes, corruption is necessary to dominate global finance.
Canada Freezes Hundreds of Accounts Tied to Protests
As a court denied bail to one arrested protest organizer, banks have locked up hundreds of accounts linked to others under an emergency order invoked by the government.
By Ian Austen Feb. 22, 2022 Updated 3:39 p.m. ET
OTTAWA — With the capital’s streets cleared of the heavy trucks and cars that made some of them impassable for three long weeks of protest, the Canadian authorities are turning their scrutiny to the finances of those behind the chaos.
The protesters may have been routed, Michael Duheme, the deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for federal policing, told reporters after Ottawa’s streets were reclaimed over the weekend, but the police need to “continue to choke off financial support.”
…
But for one protest organizer who was arrested last week, the effect was more immediate.
Appearing before a judge on Tuesday, the organizer, Tamara Lich, told the court she had been frozen out of all of her accounts and could not come up with the 5,000 Canadian dollar surety requested by prosecutors.
The issue may have been moot: The court denied bail.
The European People’s party (EPP), the largest political grouping of the European parliament, called for the EU to review its relationship with Switzerland and consider whether it should be added to its list of countries associated with a high risk of financial crime.
Political bluster of course. The leak seems to concern a lot of legacy accounts, going back as far as 1940, likely overwhelmingly before the time the US rightfully took over the Swiss’ dirty busin… I mean, before the Swiss were encouraged to clean up their act.
The European People’s party (EPP) does not have much authority with regard to Cayman Islands
and the United States. The EPP can effectively only go after Switzerland, Luxembourg and Netherlands. I wonder why Sweden was not on the list?
