The interest of gold: confidence ¦ Der Zinsertrag von Gold: Vertrauen ¦ L'intérêt de l'or: confiance
When bankers mutate from confidant of clients to IRS agents & fee hunters in storage & moving business
& let the Swiss Bankers Association nilly-willy torpedo not-invented-here regulations against systemic risks
post-9/11 programs: SWIFT penetration  ¦ OECD/FATF mission creep  ¦ Financial Sanctions Coalition
Financial Stability Forum ¦ FSF alert ¦ How not to react to US pressures on Bank Secrecy, Iran, Cuba, etc.
Hedge funds: Prudent Risk Insurance, Locusts, or Piper of Hamelin remake of 1929? ¦ UBS matters
QI: offene Fragen eines Parlamentariers  ¦  Aerospatiale case, Swiss amicus curiae ¦ Rechtshilfe
Coté juridique de l'affaire Marc Rich  ¦  Affäre Waldner: Teure Seldwylereien  ¦  Die Transparenzpsychose
How to frustrate shareholder rights

24 jan 08    Pierre Darier: "On assiste à une remise en cause du modèle anglo-saxon", Hebdo, G. Brunet
18 Jan 08   UBS to revamp investment bank, WP, Reuters, Andrew Hurst
18 Jan 08   Dire Wall Street Year With Record Bonuses of $39 Billion, WP, Bloomberg, Christine Harper
10 Jan 08   Exchequer Club speech by Fed-Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
9 Jan 08   Bankers' pay, often based on fake alpha, is deeply flawed, FT, Raghuram Rajan
31 Dec 07   Wall Street is about smart guys thinking about ways to make money from dumb ones, NYT, Dash
24 Dec 07   Swiss bank regulator to probe UBS: report, WP - Reuters, Jonathan Lynn
19 Dec 07   The looming banking crisis behind the credit crunch - a systemic fault line?, Economist, leader
11.Dez 08    Marcel Ospel: «Ich schäme mich», NZZ, ti, TK, Interview
2.Dez 07   Hans-Jörg Rudloff: «Ein unglaubliches Desaster», SonntagsZeitung, Victor Weber
28 Nov 07   Why banking remains an accident waiting to happen, Financial Times, Martin Wolf
28 Nov 07   Bankers are in the confidence, not in the storage or even moving business, FT, Peter Thal Larsen
24 Nov 07   At the gates of hell: Now the misery is spreading, Economist
23.Nov 07   UBS: Das angekündigte Debakel; Ospels Abgang im Frühling 08?, BILANZ, Lukas Hässig
23.Nov 07    Ken Moelis: Zur Branchenkrise, Geldgier und Aufspaltung der UBS, BILANZ,  Enk Nolmans
30 Jul 07   Trustees or vulgar fee-hunters? Bankers must relearn their craft, Financial Times, John Gapper
30.Jul 07   Wufflis Abgang: UBS in den USA über den Titsch gezogen, SonntagsZeitung, Arthur Rutishauser
29 juil 07   Union mondiale se dresse contre des éléphants financiers en argile, Le Temps, interview
20 Jul 07   UBS falls from grace, Economist
19 Jul 07   The fair way to tax private equity, FT, editorial
18. Juil 07  Privatsphäre in Gefahr, NZZ, Kommentar
18.Juli 07   Glaubenssätze in der Vermögensverwaltung, NZZ, Roland Hengartner
17 Jul 07   UBS settles New York InsightOne suit over charging excessive fees, WSJ, Chad Bray et al.
16. Juli 07  Jens Ehrhardt: „Es ist die größte Blase, die es je gab“, FAZ, Catherine Hoffmann, Interview
15.Juli 07   UBS riskiert mehr in den USA, Sonntags-Zeitung, ARTHUR RUTISHAUSER
15 juil 07   Notes de frais des fonds de private equity: $8 mia, Agefi, Alexandre Sonnay
20.Jun 07   Lobbying für Schweizer Banken, NZZ, Urs Ph. Roth
2 Jun 07   U.S. urges Swiss banks to steer clear of Iran, Reuters
5.Mai 07   Reiche Schweizer Firmen sind lohnende Ziele, NZZ, Daniel Hug
5. Mai 07   Plädoyer für mehr Transparenz und Übernahme-Spielregeln, NZZ, Heinrich Fischer
26.Apr 07   Singapur – Das Bankgeheimnis hält eisern, liberty.li, Anton-Rudolf Götzenberger
18.Apr 07   "Zwei Seelen wohnen ach in meiner Brust", UBS-GV-Wortmeldung, Anton Keller
14 Apr 07   Lohngefälle 554 (UBS), 600 (CS) unbedenklich?, Weltwoche, Claude Baumann, Markus Schneider
10.Jan 07   Die Schweiz nimmt Einsitz im Financial Stability Forum, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
13 Dec 06   Spitzer Suit Puts New Focus On Flat-Fee Accounts, WSJ, TOM LAURICELLA
12 Dec 06   NY State lawsuit alleges fraud on high-fee accounts - Statement from UBS
30 nov 06   Les dérives de la lutte contre le blanchiment, GHI, Gérard Le Roux
28.Nov 06   CIA-Agent interessiert sich für Bankunterlagen eines Syrers, BLICK, HENRY HABEGGER
22 Nov 06   Magnetische Kraft des Finanzplatzes Schweiz - Höchststand an verwalteten Vermögen, NZZ
14 nov 06   UBS et Crédit Suisse écoutent les Etats-Unis et rompent avec Cuba, Le Temps, Ram Etwareea
12 Nov 06    Grossbanken boykottieren Kuba, Sonntagszeitung, ARTHUR RUTISHAUSER
24 Oct 06    At U.S. [& British?] Borders, Laptops Have No Right to Privacy, NYT, Joe Sharkey
8 Oct 06   Links with "Rogue States": US Treasury leans on Western banks, The Observer, Conal Walsh
27 Sep 06   Diamantball! How not to react to US pressures on Bank Secrecy, Iran, etc., Iconoclast
21 sep 06   Washington invite les banques suisses à couper les liens avec l'Iran, Le Temps, Yves Genier
14. Sep 06   "Soft Laws": Bundesrat H.R.Merz an der Bankiertagung
28.Aug 06   Sarbanes-Oxley war ein kolossaler Fehler, NZZ, wm
4. Aug 06   Costly FATF-imposed money laundering regulations fail to meet targets, Swissinfo
22.Juli 06   Datenschutz - ein vernachlässigtes Grundrecht, NZZ, Leitartikel
20.Juli 06   Ist der Vermögensverwalter in der Regel herausgabepflichtig gemäss OR 400?, Anton Keller
14.Juli 06   CS-Geschichte: Eine Kleine Bude half Zürich, gross zu werden, Tages-Anzeiger, Janine Hosp
9.Juli 06   Milliardenrisiken für die Banken, Sonntagszeitung, Marco Zanchi und Meinrad Ballmer
3 July 06   Banks slammed for downplaying CIA probe, nzz.ch, Matthew Allen
2. Juli 06   «Bankgeheimnis büsst Kraft ein», NZZ am Sonntag, D.P. Bernet interviewt Konrad Hummler
1.Juli 06    Schweiz verhält sich gegenüber den USA zu devot, Tages-Anzeiger, A. Bundi, Kommentar
22. Juni 06  Ermittler schwächen das Bankgeheimnis, HANDELSBLATT, Oliver Stock
20.Juni 06   Wem gehören Retrozessionen?, NZZ, fel.
20.Juni 06   Retrozessionen stehen den Kunden zu, NZZ, ti, Kommentar
20. Juni 06  Auch Schweizer Börsen unter SEC-Oberaufsicht? Next: Switzerland, the 54th State?
9. April 06  Was die Schweiz gross machte: Warum ist das Land voll von Banken? Judith Wittwer
2. April 06  FBI konnte in der Schweiz illegal Akten kopieren, Sonntagszeitung, Andrea Bleicher
22.März 06  BGE 4C.432/2005 (.../BGE4C432.htm) extensive Ablieferungspflicht (OR 400)
20 mars 06   Ces modèles qui font le succès de la gestion de fortune suisse, letemps.ch, Myret Zaki
5 Mar 06   Banks 'fail low-income earners', BBC
16 fév 06  En marge d'un procès, les réviseurs: flics ou arbitres?, letemps.ch, Jacques Perrot
16 jan 06   Comment les cantons rivalisent pour les bons contribuables, Le Temps, Cathrine Cossy
    Avantages et limites de la sous-enchère fiscale
    «La classe moyenne est menacée», Gebhard Kirchgässner
15. Jan 06   Verschärfte Rechtshilfe-Auflagen empfohlen
5. Jan 06   Aufnahme des Bankgeheimnisses in der Verfassung?, Iconoclast
5 Jan 06   Thun bank collapse is finally settled, nzz.ch, Swissinfo with agencies
3. Jan 06   Wer verfügt über das "Eingemachte"?, Anton Keller
25 dec 05   Old/new human right to anonymous possession of gold, Anton Keller
13 déc 05  Impôts: la guerre fiscale fait rage en Suisse alémanique, Le Temps
    Zurich refuse de se soigner à la hausse d'impôts, Catherine Cossy
    L'impôt dégressif adopté par Obwald est juridiquement délicat, Denis Masmejan
6 déc 05  Le Parti socialiste & l'argent: rompre avec le pacte bourgeois, Le Courrier, Gian Trepp
5 Dec 05   Where they hide the cash, Guardian, Duncan Campbell
3. Dez 05   «Bürger hat Recht auf Privatsphäre», Finanz & Wirtschaft, A.Gurria, Thomas Wyss
30. Nov 05   Economic crime on the rise, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Swissinfo
29 Nov 05    Turf Wars Hinder U.S. Attack on Terror Cash, Agency Says, NYT, Eric Lichtblau
17. Nov 05   Wo Reiche gerne Steuern zahlen,Weltwoche, Markus Schneider
16 Nov 05   The profit motive may be universal but virtue is not, Financial Times, Martin Wolf
28 Oct 05   The lost trail - costly & ineffective efforts to combat terrorism financing, Economist
25 oct 05   Le système anti-blanchiment fonctionne-t-il correctement?, Le Temps, N. Gianakopoulos
25 Oct 05   Which fools follow the FATF Piper of Hamlin?, Iconoclast
24 Aug 05   It is not freaky for growth to follow tax cuts, Financial Times, Amity Shlaes
24 août 05  Patrimoine: Genève, centre d'expertise transnational, Le Temps, Myret Zaki
24 août 05  Toutes les grandes banques se précipitent vers la Chine, AGEFI, Christophe Roulet
7.Juli 05   Der absehbare Kollaps des Macro-Parasiten-Kapitalismus als Chance der SP, WOZ, Gia Trepp
25. April 05  Wo das Bankgeheimnis noch was wert ist, HANDELSBLATT, Oliver Stock
    (Steuerhinterziehung: Fiskus weitet Kontenabfragen massiv aus (30.11.05),
    Steuerspione auf der Jagd (06.05.), Zahlen über Kontoabfragen umstritten (25.04.))
25 Oct 04   Follow the Money - From St.Moritz to Singapore, WSJ, Anton Keller
2 Sep 04   Are Swiss Bankers Still Worth their Salt?, Iconoclast
11 Nov 03   Tax information exchange serves the spooks, Le Temps, Myret Zaki
11 nov 02   L'échange d'informations fiscales sert les services de renseignement, LT, Myret Zaki
11. Nov 02   Der Steuerdaten-Austausch dient den Geheimdiensten, LT, Myret Zaki
25. Aug 02   Unsere Schweiz auf schiefer Ebene, Anton Keller
17. Jun 02   Wahrung des Bankkundengeheimnisses, 02.432 - Parlamentarische Initiative.
25 Mar 02   FINANCIAL PRIVACY, LAW ENFORCEMENT & TERRORISM, Task Force Report
3.Sep 01   QI: An Orwellian Scheme Turns Into a Boomerang, GOGEL, Anton Keller
15 Aug 01   Taxation, Money Laundering & Liberty, Cambridge Symposium, Richard W. Rahn
20 July 01   HEIDILAND BLUES - observations to a comrade-in-arms, Anton Keller
7 mar 01    Les Suisses se sont mis à plat ventre devant les exigences américaines, Agefi, Richard Anderegg
13.Dez 00   NR LUZI STAMM schreibt an die Schweizerische Bankiervereinigung
24 Nov 00   QI Regulations: das trojanische Pferd für fremde Richter, ASDI/SIPA
7 Nov 00   EFD-Bewilligung gemäss Art.271 StGB
1 April 00   PRIVACY in the year Orwell+16: Individual Privacy is illusory without wealth privacy
4 Jan 00   Luttons contre les forces hostiles au secret bancaire!, AGEFI, Richard Anderegg
30 avril 98  ENFIN QUELQU'UN A COMPRIS, GHI, Gérard Le Roux
19 mar 98   Apprenti sorcier vs une Suisse éclairée: à l'origine du problème/solution, GHI, Anton Keller
1 Jan 98   WHO WANTS TO SACK HEIDYLAND?, Anton Keller, Philip Wainwright
5 Mar 97   WHEN GOLDEN FOUNDATIONS ARE TAMPERED WITH, Anton Keller
31 Dec 96   TAKING THE LID OFF SWISS BANK SECRECY, WSJ,  Anton Keller
23 July 96   DON'T CRIMINALIZE THE CASH ECONOMY, WSJ, Anton Keller
7./8. Juli 87    Schweizer Antworten auf amerikanische Ideen, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Beat Brenner
7 July 86   Waking Up to the OECD, WSJ editorial
25 June 86   Swiss Banking Secrecy Isn't All It Used to Be, WSJ, Gary Putka
9 May 86   Off Base at the OECD, WSJ editorial
9 May 86   European Taxmen Plot an Orwellian Scheme, WSJ, Anton Keller
22 Feb 85   A Swiss Mistake, WSJ editorial
23. März 84  Wahrung der Schweizer Souveränität, Motion Früh 84.400
27 Apr 82   Swiss Banking Haven Losing Luster, WSJ, Alan L. Otten

 "A change in attitude is taking place here that makes Switzerland
a less attractive banking center than it used to be," says a Swiss bank official.

ZÜRICH - These aren't the happiest of times for Swiss bankers.
    As London, Vienna, Luxembourg and other cities are developing the appeal of their financial services. Switzerland's repute as a banking haven is being threatened by domestic political anf economic developments - including a newly proposed tax on bank accounts and assaults on bank secrecy.
    "Definitely, a change in attitude is taking place here that makes Switzerland a less attractive banking center than it used to be." says Hans Mast, executive vice president at Credit Suisse. "Banking in Switzerland has become a lot more diffilult."

Problems on the Horizon
    The most publicized of the Swiss bankers' problems are the recent efforts of the U.S. Securites and Exchange Commission to force Swiss bankers to disclose information about depositors in connection with SEC investigations of insider trading. But other matters worry bankers as much or more:
    -    A government proposal to slap a 5% withholding tax on interest earned on so-called fiduciary accounts - deposits usually invested short-term in the Euromarket in the bank's name but at the customer's risk.
    -    A Socialist-sponsored referendum, probably going before Swiss voters in early 1984, to require banks to give far more information about depositors to Swiss and foreign government investigators. The referendum also would ban bank officals from serving as directors of industrial companies and would reqiure deposit insurance on small accounts.
    -    A recent ruling by the Federal Banking Commission, the Swiss bank-regulating agency, requiring banks to show in their balance sheets just how much they take from so-called hidden reserves to cover unusually heavy operating losses, and just
what those losses were.
    -     A government proposal, due later this year, to overhaul Swiss banking laws. Though most changes are expected to be highly technical, it will probably also include several significant changes, such as a plan for deposit insurance.
    Some it these problems probably will vanish eventually. One chamber of the Swiss parliament, for example, has rejected the government's  proposal for a withholding tax on fiduciary accounts, and practically everyone expects the Socialist referendum, strongly opposed by the government, to be rejected by the voters. But no one can be shure: the withholding tax is still being studied by a committee in the other chamber, and some 120.000 Swiss did, after all, sign the petition forcing the Socialist proposal to the ballot.
    Moreover, many Swiss bankers worry that the possibility of such changes, however remote, is scaring off important foreign clients. Proposals like these "probably do have some influence on customers," says Jean-Paul Chapuis, managing director of the Swiss Bankers Association in Basel, though he adds that he believes other factors are more important in customer decisions.
    Swiss bankers claim that foreign clients are attracted here by much more than the highly publicized bank secrecy. Customers often praise the stability of the Swiss economy and Swiss government, the reputation Swiss banks have as cautious but screwd portfolio managers, the central location of the country and the ability of so many Swiss to converse easily in several languages. There is growing criticism in other countries, though, that Swiss banks now charge far too much for their services, compared to competitors.
    Secrecy, however, clearly has been a major drawing card. Swiss law provides a penalty of as long as six months in jail and fines for as much as 50.000 Swiss francs (about $25.000) for anyone improperly disclosing confidential information about clients. (The criminal penalties were added in 1934 to frustrate Nazi investigators trying to track down the Swiss deposits of German Jews.) The only exception to the confidentiality requirement is that a bank must give up information to authorities investigating activities that are a crime under Swiss law.
    Many acts that are a crime in the U.S. and other countries, however, aren't a crime here, and that's where the Swiss get into complications wifh other governments. Tax fraud is a crime here, for example, but tax evasion only a misdemeanor. Neither insider trading nor evasion of foreign exchange controls is a crime in Switzerland. So Swiss banks have refused to give the U.S. or other foreign authorities information in connection with investigations of tax fraud, insider trading or foreign exchange violations.
    "The existing law on bank secrecy is basically sound, and one must be very prudent in changing it," maintains Bernard Müller, head of the banking commission's secretariat in the Swiss capital of Berne. Similarly, another banking official says
that "secrecy may not be well regarded in the U.S., but it is good for the Swiss. We don't like our authorities to know too much about us."
    Until the SEC insider trading flap blew up last year, most foreign complaints about Swiss bank secrecy came from foreign government agencies investigating tax evasion or evasion of foreign exchange controls. The Italian and French governments, for example, have long been frustrated by their inability to identify people who illegally move Italian and French money into Swiss accounts - the French more than ever after the Mitterrand election precipitated a heavy capital flight.

Insider Trading Is Legal
    The insider-trading controversy has now intensified the spotlight on Swiss bank secrecy. Actually, the government, central bank President Fritz Leutwiler and the Bankers association all agree insider trading should be outlawed. Only this week, the banking commission reaffirmed its 1977 recommendation that insider trading be made a criminal offense, and the government is currently preparing its proposal to do this.
    But the Swiss legislative process moves with the speed of a tortoise, and it could be several years before the law is finally changed. There will also be considerable controversy over just how to change it.
    "It cannot be so general that it is a renunciation of all bank secrecy," argues Mr. Chapuis of the bankers assocation. Credit Suisse's Mr. Mast says, "We are of the same opinion morally as the Americans about insider trading. What we worry about is that if it is made a crime, it will be a broad article, and then the authorities will use it to nose into all manner of things."
    In the meantime, several banks say they are warning foreign depositors that some confidentiality may have to be surrendered if the SEC keeps pressing and forcing cases into the U.S. courts.

A Haven for Crooks?
    Voter approval of the Socialist referendum would, of course, bring broad change in secrecy and other bank practices. Socialist campaigners charge that secrecy now makes Switzerland a refuge for the illegally gained funds of "Mafia gangsters, Thrd World dictators and other crooks." These attacks, long heard in Switzerland, probably haven't persuaded many voters. But a number of management lapses and scandals could produce strong support for the referendum.
    In the Chiasso scandal, for instance, officials of the Credit Suisse branch in Chiasso and several of their associates brought in millions of dollars of ilegally exported Italian funds, switched them into a Liechtenstein bank they operated and than invested the money recklessly and lost heavily. Since the deposits had been accepted in the name of Credit Suisse, the bank felt obliged to make good, ultimately paying the equivalent of over $500 million.
    "Every day, the banks furnish us with our case," says Socialist Party spokesman Peter Graf in Berne.
    The withholding tax on fiduciary-account interest could, if it ever passed, be a major problem, since tax-free interest is the attraction these accounts have for multinationals, Arab oil sheiks and other large depositors. Loss of the tax-free status could drive these highly mobile accounts to another haven. The tax was initially proposed by the government in 1980 to raise new revenue and cut the large deficit projected for 1981. It has been endorsed by Mr. Leutwiler, who believes there is considerable risk in these investments and that banks have let them balloon too fast - to thie equivalent of $84 billion in mid-1981, up from about $27 billion at the end of 1978.
    "We are against all special taxes on banking transactions." says the bankers association's Mr. Chapuis. "Banks and their customers already pay high taxes."
    The tax threat has temporarily eased - in part because the 1981 budget deficit turned out to be far slimmer than the original projection and thus reduced the need for new revenue, and in part because the growth of these accounts seems to be slowing.
    Changes in the hidden-reserve requirement came after Swiss Volksbank drew from hidden reserves in 1980 and 1981 to cover heavy losses due to clients' inability to make good on losses in silver trading in 1979. It not only failed to show these losses or the use of reserves, but actually reported record profit.
    Swiss law permits banks and other businesses to put part of their earnings into reserves not shown in the balance sheet; these hidden reserves are intended to cover an unexpected reverse, maintain the dividend rate during a downturn in the business cycle, or finance new ventures. (Estimates of the exact size of hidden bank reserves vary so widely as to be virtually
worthless, though everyone agrees they are impressively large.) But banking officials say the reserves were never meant to cover up persistant losses resulting from bad management or other deep-seated problems. Moreover, Swiss law also requires that the balance sheet of a bank or other business give a truthful picture of the organization's financial condition.
    At the beginning of this year, the banking commission decided that unreported use of hidden reserves to cover serious recurring losses didn't rneet this requirement for a fair and truthful picture. In the future, the commission ruled, such drawing on hidden reserves must be disclosed in the bank's balance sheet.
    "The disposition to build hidden reserves prevailed too much," says Mr. Müller of the banking commission in Berne. "And so the danger grew of misinforming the public. It was also a danger for the bank itself."
    "A typical Swiss compromise," observes another banking official. "You still can have hidden reserves, but you no longer can have hidden losses."

    Switzerland's officials are insisting no harm was done by their decision to break bank secrecy and hand over documents to American prosecutors trying to nail those suspected of violating American law by trading on inside information in the Santa Fe International case. The spokesman for the Swiss Justice Department is boasting that legal assistance "does function" between the two coimtries. The new Justice Minister herself, Elizabeth Kopp, now says that clearing up so-called misunderstandings with the Amencans is one of her priorities. And the country's supreme executive authority, the Federal Council, claims the action won't harm the national interest.
    Well, the market is going to make its own decision on that, and it wouldn't be surprising to see it go against the Swiss economy in the coming years. For when you clear away all the legal gobbledygook what the Swiss have done for short-term gain here is to jettison protections that clients of Swiss banks have long cherished. The short-term gain is that some pressure might be taken off some Swiss banks wanting to expand in the U.S. market. But the longterm risk - a serious one - is that the Swiss are opening their highly successful and exceptionally private economy to regulation according to the American culture.
    America' s regulators don't see it that way, of course. They have been pursumg the Santa Fe International case for more than three years, ever since they noticed a surge in the trading of Santa Fe International stock and options during the weeks before an announcement was made of a merger agreement between Santa Fe and Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Trading in Santa Fe shares was haited on Oct. 2. 1981, when the stock was selling at $24.625 a share. The merger was announced Oct. 5. When trading resumed, the stock crossed at $42 a share. On Oct. 25, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed an enforcement action against "certain unknown purchasers" (and one known foreigner) who, the SEC contends, had made illegal gains.
    But the SEC ran into Swiss bank secrecy when it tried to find out who the alleged insiders were, for the suspect transactions had been made through Swiss banks operating for clients. So it launched its long struggle to gain the names of the clients for whom the banks were acting, along with related documents. One problem it ran into was that insider trading, per se, isn't a crime in Switzerland. The Americans argue their mandate is to protect the American market, even when insider trading is initiated in it from offshore. The Swiss sent the names of the alleged insiders in May 1984, and have now delivered documents that presumably could enable the SEC to pursue the case further.
    Swiss bankers found themselves caught in the middle of all this (several Swiss banks were named nominal defendants in the Santa Fe case, because they made the trades from their ominibus trading accounts). So the banks weren't exactily unhappy when the Swiss govemment started cooperating with the Americans. The director of the Swiss Bankers Association, Jean-Paul Chapuis, says: "We have to protect the rights of individuals, but do away with what is unnecessary." Indeed, the Swiss Bankers Association appears to be supporting a proposal to outlaw insider trading in Switzeriand, which would broaden access by American prosecutors in these kinds of cases.
    This, however, has quite a few Swiss worried and promises to be a hot issue in the future. The Swiss Investors Protection Association, most assiduously, has been arguing that the government in Bern will jeopardize a business climate that has served the country well - even spectacularly - for generations. It's easy to understand its worries. Let the American regulators get a foot in the door on insider trading and they'll jump in with both feet on antitrust cases. Soon there'll be a stampede on tax cases, and before you know it, there won't be all that much difference between Switzerland and America. The theorists will call that a "level playing field." But the market may start to wonder why it needs to do business in Switzerland at all.

ZÜRICH - Justice departments for nearly 20 years tried to pry suspected Nazi bank records from the Swiss. They got nowhere. After taking Hungary, the Soviets tried taking the Hungarians' Swiss bank accounts, too. They never found them.
In its heyday, Swiss banking secrecy was a superpower, thwarting Israel, Algeria, Ethiopia, Iran and legions of French and Italian tax officials looking for their countrymen's hidden assets.
    But no more. Last month, the oldest major bank in Switzerland, Bank Leu Ltd., coughed up the name of a customer, Investment banker Dennis B. Levine, in return for immunity in the largest U.S. insider trading case on record. In March, the Swiss government froze the assets of ousted Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos before Manila even asked. Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier's Swiss holdings were also blocked. In days gone by, the Swiss government wouldn't
even confirm it had such deposed rulers' money.

Granting Requests
    These are only the more celebrated examples. Switzerland is granting about 800 foreign requests a year for banking information, most of them made under treaties, laws and conventions which didn't exist 10 years ago.
    The protections of the once-impenetrable Swiss bank account are eroding. Tough foreign pressure, the expansion of Swiss banks abroad and their resultant exposure to foreign courts, and national shame over two decades of spectacular Swiss account scandals have all played a role.
    "Secrets aren't flying out the window," says Hans Baer, President of Bank Julius Baer & Co. in Zürich. "But there has been a change. The scope of what's covered by banking secrecy has narrowed."
    In the past, says Theodore Levine, a former enforcement officer at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC wouldn't bother pursuing insider-trading cases in which the source of suspicious trading was a Swiss bank. "We knew it was hopeless" getting information out, says Mr. Levine. In recent years, however, the agency has obtained help from the Swiss not only on the Dennis Levine case but in two other important insider probes, the 1981 trading in advance of the takeovers of Santa Fe International and St. Joe Minerals.
    Although Swiss law takes a much narrower view of tax crimes than does the U.S., Switzerland also has begun helping the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Convicted tax evader Marc Rich, the international commodities trader, agreed to pay the IRS $200 million in a huge tax case in 1984 when it became apparent that Switzerland would release crucial documentary evidence to the U.S.
    In the wake of the St. Joe and Santa Fe cases, a law to ban domestic insider trading is headed for passage in Switzerland, with the active support of the Swiss Bankers Association. Says Mr. Baer, "We've learned that insider trading is unethical. Years ago, we looked at it as a pretty good way to make money."

Privacy Upheld
    But secrecy is far from finished in Switzerland. Just two years ago, Swiss voters rejected proposals to water down privacy laws by a three-to-one margin. U.S. investigators continue to be stymied or delayed in some important probes. And the right wing has mounted a rear-guard action against the insider bill, which some bankers privately say they are helping to finance.
One Zuricher worried about the demise of being discreet is Claude Dreifuss, co-owner of Ellis AG, a local stockbrokerage. "When I got into the banking business 20 years ago, the client was king," says Mr. Dreifuss, "Now the banks protect them-selves before they protect an individual client."
    Mr. Dreifuss is doing his share of protecting, however. He said no when the SEC asked for names of about 30 Ellis customers suspected of operating an insider trading ring that made as much as $50 million in the U.S. stock market starting in 1979. The Swiss government has turned down at least one U.S. request for help.
    As the Ellis case shows, secrecy in Switzeriand remains a subtle business. A 1977 treaty obliges Switzerland to help the U.S. in criminal investigations, but insider trading isn't yet a Swiss crime. And because Ellis isn't a bank, it isn't covered by a 1983 convention with the U.S. that calls for cooperation in insider trading.

Profits Rising
    The redoubtable Swiss banks, meanwhile, continue operating in a murky world of hidden reserves and opaque accounting, making big profits from an international clientele who prefer the discreet approach. Bank profits last year were up by 20%, swelled by fees and interest earnings on $250 billion in disclosed deposit from overseas. According to Swiss estimates, the banks have perhaps an additional $600 billion in undisclosed securities accounts from abroad, and untold billions more in foreign valuables locked up in safeboxes.
    "It's still secret here - too secret," says Rudolph Strahm, a state legislator in Berne who monitors banks for the Social Democratic Party, part of the country's ruling coalition government. "Switzerland continues to be an attractive place for flight capital of every kind, and for committing white-collar crime."
    Crusading by some Social Democrats, church groups and others has firmly entrenched secrecy and its abuses as domestic political issues, promising a continuing debate on the subject in coming years. This, even more than the compromises made to date, poses a threat to the banks. If secrecy is eroded enough, some bankers fear customers will begin favoring other secrecy havens such as Austria, the Bahamas or Panama.

Insecurity Growing
    As a result of the Marcos and Duvalier decisions, "you already hear whisperings about withdrawals," says Juerg Boller, the former head of public affairs for Swiss Bank Corp. "A client who has hidden something, or has a special reason for deposits here, is now insecure."
    Swiss bankers have never asked too many questions - or given too many answers - about where their deposits came from. The Swiss penchant for keeping secrets dates back at least to the 18th Century, when Geneva adopted a non-binding mercantile code designed to obscure the fact that banks in the supposedly neutral city-state were working for a warring France.
    But secrecy had no real punch until 1934, when Switzerland passed laws making it a crime to disclose an account holder's name. Nobody is exactly sure why. Swiss patriots say it was to keep the Nazis away from Jewish assets. Just as likely, it was to thwart the French taxman, not averse to bribing Swiss bank employees for French clients' names.
    In World War II Swiss secrecy helped persecuted Jews hide money from the Nazis while helping the Nazis hide money stolen from the Jews. Since then, it has served con artists, despots and those they torment as well as people with legitimate fears for their future security.

Life-Protecting Service'
    "I have Pakistani clients who could turn around one day and see their government change, or find themselves thrown in jail," says Pierre Darier, a director of Darier & Cie., in Geneva. "Their families would then have nothing but their Swiss bank account to rely on. It is more than a banking service. I'm providing for these people. It's a life-protecting service."
    The moral dilemmas inherent in Switzerland's role as the world's strongbox troubles the Swiss. It also stirs their passions. Few defend the rights of dictators to hide behind numbered bank accounts, but many, like Mr. Darier, believe secrecy serves a purpose. And resentment is widespread for the strong-arm tactics used by the U.S., the French and others to crack banking secrecy in recent years.
    "We sometimes have a feeling here of U.S. legal imperialism," says Edwin Zimmerli, a Zurich police officer who has helped the U.S. in several investigations. "The Americans often seem convinced that they are right, and all other nations should bend willingly to their higher moral and ethical standards - and if not willingly, then by force."
    When a U.S. court sought client names from Banca della Svizzerra Italiana in the St. Joe Minerals case, the bank replied that it couldn't help because it would be breaking Swiss law. At the SEC's prompting, the court responded by freezing the bank's American assets. Similar tactics were used in the Santa Fe case. In the Marc Rich case, a daily fine of $50,000 was imposed on the company's American unit for resisting production of evidence.
    In all three cases, the Swiss parties gave in, but not without putting some strains on Swiss-American relations. When diplomatic protests didn't work, Swiss police at one point swooped in on Marc Rich's offices to prevent the documents from being shipped to the U.S.

Lawyers Threatened
    In a drug-related case in Tampa in 1984, U.S. district court judge Ben Krentzman went so far as to threaten two Swiss lawyers with contempt citations if they didn't stop resisting efforts to gather evidence in Switzerland on U.S. clients they were representing.
    "I was totally shocked," said Eric Delissy, one of the attorneys. "I'd never heard of a court ordering a lawyer to stop defending a client before - except in totalitarian states." Nonetheless Mr. Delissy and his partner gave in, and the records were shipped to the U.S.
    Part of the explanation for the release of more information may be that more Swiss banks are operating abroad, exposing themselves to the foreign courts. "The situation is clear," says Hans Peter Schaad, house counsel at Bank Leu. "The U.S. agencies are able to put pressure on any entity or account that the banks have in the U.S."
    In the Levine insider-trading case, Mr. Schaad says Bank Leu gave up the investment banker's name because it was worried about what the U.S. courts would do to its New York branch. One top official at Banca della Svizzera Italiana says the SEC still might be investigating the St. Joe case if the bank didn't have New York assets.

Depositors Get Nervous
    With Switzerland's secrecy rules looking about as porous as the national cheese, foreign depositors looking for confidentiality are showing signs of worry. But according to some bankers, depositors aren't at the point of withdrawing funds. Instead they may just be depositing them through other secrecy havens, hoping to add another layer of protection.
    Reported deposits from Panama and the Caribbean, for instance, surged to $25 billion at the end of 1984, from $4 billion in 1978. Deposits from tiny Liechtenstein, where thousands of corporations maintain post-box addresses and little else, surged four-fold to $5 billion from 1978 to 1982.
Since then, in the Swiss central bank's list dividing deposits by foreign countries, Liechtenstein has disappeared.

        One of the things to which the Reagan administration needs to wake up is the fact that its new tax reform is going to turn the U.S. into a tax haven.  A top marginal rate of 30% or below will look like a veritable engraved invitation to those who work hard for their money to move it into the U.S., where it won't be taxed at the confiscatory rates prevalent in places like Europe and the more dismal parts of the Third World.  This is extremely good for an America that wants and needs all the savings and investment it can get.  But a plot is afoot to deny America these benefits - a plot which the Reagan administration has the power to stymie, if it starts to act.  The plot is unfolding in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  This normally benign organization has for several years now been drafting - in secret - a convention that would open the door to foreign tax collectors meddling in each others' countries.

        ... So the U.S. collaborated in the OECD's efforts, hoping to make things easier for its tax collectors.  Now the shoe is being shifted to the other foot, and the cash is going to be flowing - has already been flowing - to America.  It would be one thing if the convention under discussion were aimed solely at stopping the kind of criminal tax evasion we all abhor.  But the thing for the U.S. to understand is something Europeans have understood for years: Not only are tax rates high in Europe, but tax authorities are often politically motivated and corrupt.  So tax havens can emerge as more than the market place's answer to onerous imposts.   They can be seen, in many cases, as  redoubts where an individual can escape real fiscal injustice.  If the OECD convention is allowed to go forward, the U.S. will have all sorts of tax collectors going on fiscal fishing expeditions in the U.S. itself.

 Secret Work
        Not to be bested on its own turf of extra-constitutional lawmaking by unelected technocrats, the United Nations promptly followed suit.  In December 1983, a U.N. group of experts presented a corresponding, detailed set of "Guidelines for International Cooperation to Combat International Tax Evasion and Avoidance."
        Between these two events came an even more significant coup.  Members of the Committee of Experts on Tax Law (known by the French acronym CJ-FI, not to be confused with the CJ-IT, which is secretly preparing a convention on insider trading) convinced the Council of Europe to give them the mandate to draft a "multilateral convention on mutual assistance to prevent international tax avoidance and evasion."  After years of working in utmost secrecy, the CJ-Fl prided itself on offering the under-administered world a convention that goes beyond simple methods of preventing international tax avoidance and evasion.  This convention provides for "extensive cooperation between tax authorities in administrative matters."  What we have here is not merely arranging for help in prosecuting crimes: what we have in practice is a call for "automatic" and ''spontaneous" exchanges of taxpayer data, through the most effective means available, including "telex, telephone and exchange of magnetic tapes."  It may also involve "measures taken by judicial bodies," for example, the seizure of assets, prosecution and police interventions within and beyond national borders.
        Only a fey months ago the involved governments received the final version of this group’s innocent-sounding "Draft Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters."  Dubbed the "INTERFIPOL Convention" - a play on Interpol, the international police force - this tightly guarded fruit of years of clandestine legislative work is scheduled to be adopted in September simultaneously by the OECD and the Council of Europe.  It will then be "opened for signature" by member countries, whose parliaments may then rubber-stamp it to preserve the appearance of constitutional lawmaking.
        The draft obliges signatory states to render assistance on "(a) exchange of information, including simultaneous tax examinations and participation in the tax examinations abroad;  (b) assistance in recovery, including measures of conservancy; and  (c) service of documents."  This blanket obligation - which would mean a further bloating of fiscal bureaucracies - covers all tax matters and is not limited to suspected cases of tax fraud, tax evasion or even mere tax avoidance.
        Again, this goes beyond simply setting up a framework for pursuing actual criminals.  The 278-paragraph explanatory report specifically leaves that to other conventions, saying "action by judicial bodies carried out pursuant to criminal law and intended to punish criminal offenses committed in the tax fields does not . . . fall within the scope of application of the present instrument."  Thus what’s going on here is a general onslaught on the fundamental principles of sovereignty and individual rights.  The sole justification for this is offered in the preamble.  There it is stated "that the development of international movement of persons, capital, goods and services, although highly beneficial in itself, has increased the possibilities of tax avoidance and evasion and therefore requires increasing cooperation among tax authorities."
        The INTERFIPOL Convention provides that in some cases "contracting states shall automatically exchange the information."  These cases include tax assessment and collection, as well as prosecution before an administrative authority or the initiation of prosecution before a judicial body.  Moreover, the convention requires member states to provide upon request any information in these areas concerning particular people or particular transactions.  On top of this, if the tax files do not yield the appropriate requested information, then the nation receiving the request is obligated to "take all relevant measures to provide the applicant state with the information requested."
        But that’s not all.  The proposed convention even covers the transfer of information that had not been requested. Under its terms a nation would be obligated to send information if it believes that the other state may be losing tax money, that someone is using its laws to avoid paying taxes in his own country and thus increase the tax burden there, that business has been conducted in a way to take advantage of tax laws, or that artificial transfers of profits within groups or enterprises are being made to save on taxes.
        Finally, the document virtually eliminates national borders.  Upon request, one nation may allow tax authorities of another nation to be present during any tax investigation.  Lest the ultimate aim of all this be missed, the document's drafters spell it out unequivocably:  Under the terms of the agreement, a state must "take the necessary steps to recover tax claims" of the state requesting help "as if they were its own claims" (my italics).
        The INTERFIPOL Convention also gives binding definitions of various terms, even including under the category of taxes "compulsory social security contributions payable to general government or to social security institutions established under public law."  Yet it remains tellingly and purposefully silent on the key terms "tax avoidance" and "tax evasion," saying only that both require "increasing cooperation among tax authorities."  It is but a short step from this to an invitation to "legally" discriminate, pressure and subdue any businessman who has the bad luck to fall into disfavor with the government of the day.  For there appear to be no limits and no redress mechanisms to prevent a witch hunt or fishing expedition against people engaged in perfectly legitimate international commerce.

Fake Safeguards
        The convention's authors didn’t completely forget their basic obligation toward their taxpayers, which is to protect them against foreign taxations in return for their tax payments.  Accordingly, the preamble calls for states "to protect the legitimate interests of taxpayers, including appropriate protection against discrimination and double taxation."  There are even articles purportedly serving that noble aim.  At least, they carry the assuring titles: "Protection of Persons and Limits to the Obligation to Provide Assistance" and "Secrecy."  But on closer analysis, these safeguards turn out to be fakes, for they give little more than lip service to the principles invoked.  They fail to mask the police and fiscal mentality that gave birth to this assault on enterprising humans in the first place.
        Fortunately, all this has not gone entirely unnoticed; it's receiving what is doubtless unwanted attention in the more enlightened circles of OECD member countries. True, the White House representative to the OECD last July still didn't take kindly to the Swiss government’s commendable side-tracking of the ill-advised OECD ''recommendation" to lift banking secrecy for tax authorities.  But in the wake of some resounding popular votes, the Swiss government seems more than ever intent to speak up for the embattled taxpayers.  The governments of Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Portugal have already voiced their support for opposing this convention.  Will other principled parliamentarians and government leaders also rally around in time to force an end to this alarming piece of self-serving, bureaucratic lawmaking?
______
Mr. Keller is secretary of the Swiss Investors Protection Association
e-mail: swissbit@solami.com
for convention text, see: http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/Treaties/Html/127.htm

        Some months ago we had a particularly pleasant lunch in Paris at he home of the American ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  One thing that made it so was the enthusiasm the U.S. mission is bringing to awakening the OECD to supply-side approaches to European problems.  Suddenly, the OECD's reports seem full of talk about tax cuts and free market reforms.
        So it's all the more reason to view with alarm the report, appearing in the adjacent columns, of a campaign against tax avoidance thus is quietly gathering steam within the OECD bureaucracy.  The idea is not merely of governments to cooperate in going after real tax criminals who fraudulently evade imposts. The OECD seems to want to target individuals who only seek to avoid taxes by working, banking or investing in low-tax countries.
        The net result of a campaign against tax avoidance would be to subject corporations and individuals to endless investigation and harassment by high-tax states, whose confiscatory fiscal nets millions seek to avoid by entirely legal means.  This is particularly true in Europe, where tax rates vary so widely.  The author of the adjacent-article, H.Anton Keller, has a bird's eye view of this problem from his perch in Switzerland.  Lots of people work, live, or bank in Switzerland to take advantage of its favorable fiscal climate.
        Switzerland is an interesting case.  It helps foreign governments go after suspects and evidence in Switzerland, if the individuals are suspected of doing things that both Switzerland and the foreign government deem to be criminal.  But Switzerland doesn't help foreign governments go after information and individuals in Switzerland if no crime is suspected or alleged under Swiss law.  What the OECD is hatching is a set of principles that would allow governments to pry even when no crime is being investigated.
        Proponents of administrative cooperation in tax matters argue that honest earnings wouldn't be jeopardized.  But that assurance is subject to some considerable doubt.  The agenda here is to end the perfectly legal practice of tax avoidance, and it's distressing that Switzerland is practically alone in sounding the alarm.  The problem that confronts the OECD member countries is not that governments are chary of sharing tax information.  It's that many of them - France, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, to name a few - have tax rate schedules that extract outrageously high percentages of earnings above certain levels: thereby discouraging work effort and encouraging avoidance.  The way for the OECD to help is not to work at expanding government regulation but to press on with the supply-side case for tax reform.

  La situation est grave.  Sur notre Titanic hélvétique l'air de bal et de casino est mélangée avec une certaine fatigue et un sens de fatalité chez des décideurs.  Ceci a permit aux seigneurs du nouveau ordre mondial et leurs apologistes de s'installer, à l'abordage, au pont de commandement abandonné par l'équipage qui, en rafflant les canots de sauvetage, ont abandonné les passagers à leur sort.  Le deuxième pilier de la prévoyance sociale, un monstre hors contrôle, est devenu l'instrument clé de ces pirates modernes: dans sa conception actuelle, l'assurance sur la prévoyance professionnelle permet tous les magouilles et met en danger non seulement sa propre base mais aussi celui de l’AVS et du troisième pilier.  Or, une prévoyance sociale fiable dépend d'une saine structure économique, sociale et politique enracinée dans des petits et moyens entreprises gérées avec une vision à longe terme, des principes éthiques et des institutions qui ont fait leurs preuves.  En effet, des acteurs majeurs de notre système bancaire se sont engagés dans une folle course aveugle aux profits maximalisés à courte terme.  Ceci met en péril nos forces productrices, notamment la volonté et la capacité de nos jeunes de sortir de leur coquille, de reconnaître la chimère de la gratuité - étatique ou privée - et de s’investir dans notre société par une formation professionelle extravertie et adaptée.  En négligeant leurs propres racines, en changeant abusivement les règles du jeu, et en rappelant avant terme leurs crédits, une nouvelle génération de faux porteurs du drapeau suisse nettoie ainsi leurs bilans, tout en forçant des milliers de PMEs sains et profitables de choisir entre mettre les clés sous le paillasson ou se réfugier dans les bras d'une nouvelle mafia.

1.  Avec l’introduction de l'assurance obligatoire sur la prévoyance professionnelle (RS 831.40 LPP ¦ BVG) en 1985, une masse des fonds toujours plus importante (1994 env. 275 milliards francs) chasse des titres de placement sûr qui par leur nombre restreint deviennent de plus en plus chers.  Avant 1985, pour assurer la sécurité des fonds de pension, les dirigeants étaient autorisés d’effectuer seulement des "placements en père de famille" (obligations suisse, lettres de gages, etc.).  Déjà dans son message au Parlement sur le LPP de 1975, le Conseil Fédéral a ouvert une brèche pour des placements spéculatifs des fonds de pensions; s'il avait des soucis sur les effets pervers que ces gigantesques fonds pouvaient avoir sur la bourse et le marché des crédits, il les gardait pour lui-même.  Par contre, il se préoccupait du problème de la capacité limité du marché suisse d’offrir des placements adéquates - et rentables - pour ce flot d’argent.

A l’époque, seulement quelques voix rarissimes, comme les parlementairesBrunner et Jauslin (qui finalement ont payé avec la perte de leurs sièges pour avoir sonné l’alarme), ont questionné la sagesse de laisser libre cours à de tels monstres financiers qui ne pouvaient pas manquer de fausser les courses dans la bourse.  Dans l’art.71 LPP on lit donc:

"Les institutions de prévoyance administreront leur fortune de manière à garantir la sécurité des placements, un rendement raisonnable, une répartition appropriée des risques et la couverture des besoins prévisibles de liquidités."

 a) le critère de la dimension d’une entreprise (art.50 al.2; ce qui, en pratique, a amené les dirigeants des fonds à considérer une entreprise comme sûr qu’à partir d’une certaine dimension, éliminant ainsi la plupart des PMUs du champ de placement),

b) l'obligation de poursuivre un rendement conforme au marché  (art.51; ce qui, en négligeant la sécurité, a encouragé un cours au profit à court terme), et

c) l’autorisation des placements dans des instruments dérivatifs  (art.56a; ce qui a davantage encore engendré une atmosphère de casino, ces placements figurant parmi les plus risqués, comme le démontre les cas récents: Barings, Rinderknecht, SBS, UBS).

1. que la nouvelle UBS serait le produit d'un inceste économique - sans que les avantages normalement associés avec une fructification étrangère pourraient être réalisés; en tant que telle, ses dimensions poseraient problème, autant plus que ses nouvelles orientations et vocations étrangères ne correspondraient guère aux traditions et la culture bancaire suisse et, de toute évidence, seraient même incompatible avec les institutions et l’environnement économique, sociale et politique qui prévaut en Suisse;

2. que de tels buts de rendement favorisent des stratégies, politiques et décisions qui sont risquées  et entraînent l’amputation des organes vitaux (personnel qualifié) qui nourrissaient les pratiques suivies avec succès jusqu’à maintenant;  et

3.  que l’actuel management de l’UBS semble avoir ignoré jusqu’au début janvier 1998 les 15,85% p.a. rendement moyenne (dividende et droits) pour la période 1980-1997 (réponse officielle du 12 janvier 1988 que le département des études économiques de l’UBS à fourni à un actionnaire qui posait le question fin 1997; ainsi on peut se demander si d’autres actionnaires, dans leurs critiques du management, n’étaient pas „right for the wrong reasons").

Les radiations et implications des actuels UBS et SBS à l'intérieur et à l’extérieure indiquent en tout cas des approches alternatifs.  Primo, les règles et innovations de la place financière suisse ne sont pas sans influence sur les grands marchés étrangers.Secondo, en matière fiscale, on a pu constater des effets inattendus des déviations suisses des principes et des innovations de taxation irréfléchi (p.ex. tax militaire). Terzo,nos lois concernant le deuxième pilier furent l’inspiration pour des pratiques dommageables des grands fonds de pensions étrangers.  Nous portons donc une certaine co-responsabilité pour des développements néfastes ici et là.

En mettant le doigt sur les vraies causes des dérapages en cours et en agissant en conséquence aussi vis-à-vis ce projet de fusion, nous avons enfin une occasion de nous décharger de cette co-responsabilité d’une façon bénéfique pour les deux cotés.  Car le choque ainsi provoqué devrait aussi arrêter cette folle course au gigantisme malsaine et exposer l’absurdité économique de créer des entités de plus en plus concentrés (sur des agendas cachées, voir notre site spéciale: www.solami.com/a$UBS.htm ).

Justement en matière de concurrence, le législateur suisse a stipulé que „La présente loi a pour but d’empêcher les conséquences nuisibles d’ordre économiques ou social imputables aux cartels et aux autres restrictions à la concurrence et de promouvoir ainsi la concurrence dans l’intérêt d’une économie de marché fondée sur un régime libérale." (art.1 LCart).  Soucieux de la concurrence à l’intérieure des différents secteurs de l’économie, il n’entendait jamais instaurer ou protéger une compétition au profit. ou de favoriser la mentalité du casino.  S’il avait eu la moindre indication à quel point la Suisse serait suivi dans cette course mal considérée - bourse gonflée, fusionitis, manie de performance à courte terme, négligence de sécurité, etc. - il n’aurait jamais emprunté cette voie.  Jusqu’à nouvel ordre, il appartient alors aux acteurs de veiller - par leurs paroles, actes et inactions - à ce que l’économie du marché garde bien sa fonctionnalité et qu’elle reste libérale.

3.  Les banquiers "worth their salt" (qui méritent leur salaire) le sont parcequ’ils connaissent leur métier et respectent les limites à ne pas dépasser pour maintenir la santé économique.  Ils n’exploitent pas des lacunes juridiques sur le dos de la substance.  Il ne suivent pas - comme quelques greenhorns - le dernier guru de passage, ni se laissent aveugler par quelconque aberration de la doctrine qui risquerait de provoquer davantage d’interventions des autorités ou juges étrangers dans nos affaires.  En tant que fiduciaire conscient de leurs nobles traditions, rôles et obligations, ils ne manquent d’agir sans autre dans le sens du législateur et, le cas échéant, de se substituer même à lui, comme indiqué ci-dessus (en paraphrasant l’art.1 CC).  Toute action ou inaction contraire à ces notions traditionnelles du bon sens ne peut pas servir nos intérêts; il contribuera à un affaiblissement, à une menace existentielle non seulement de la banque mais de l’économie et de la place financière suisse toute entière.  Sur notre site Internet - http://www.solami.com - quelques banquiers genevois prévoyants sont mentionnés.  Néanmoins, cela ne suffit pas pour assurer les mesures qui s’imposent sur le plan politique et juridique et qui doivent être prises dans des délais extrêmement courts.  Les autres quatre porteurs du drapeau des justes - dont l'écrivain Zurichois Gottfried Keller nous a déja raconté le siècle dernier - sont alors invités de se présenter rapidement.

Qu’est-ce c’est que cette"concurrence fiscale dommageable" dont on parle à Paris et à Bruxelles?

C’est le cache-sexe le plus en vogue parmi ceux qui en veulent aux "paradis fiscaux" – sous-entendant les places financières comme la Suisse.  La plus grande menace s’exerce actuellement par le biais de l’OCDE (Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques).  Cette dernière mène une véritable guerre économique larvée pour niveler vers le haut les charges fiscales en cherchant à supprimer ce qu’elle nomme – sans les définir -- les "distortions fiscales néfastes".  Le Conseil de l’Europe et l’Union européenne participent à cette razzia au mépris des libertés fondamentales.  Ils s’appuient sur les travaux d’un comité clandestin de l’OCDE qui se nomme "Groupe de travail sur la fraude et l’évasion fiscales".  De ce fait, la place financière suisse se trouve menacée par de sérieuses pressions extérieures, qui sont en plus accentuées par des défaillances intérieures.

Comment expliquer cela de la part d’organisations chargées de promouvoir les libertés individuelles?

Pour les autorités fiscales du monde entier, presque tous les moyens sont bons dans leur chasse aux nouveaux revenus.  Coiffant le chapeau de confrérie internationale, ces fonctionnaires nationaux agissent hors contrôle et forment une masse critique redoutable.  Ils se servent des organisations internationales gouvernementales pour influencer les législations nationales.  Ils arrivent ainsi à faire criminaliser des activités économiques ordinaires, voire indispensables, et n’hésitent pas d’abuser de la lutte justifiée contre le crime organisé afin de réduire à néant le secret bancaire.  Ils ont déjà réussi à faire mettre en place une police financière internationale, la Financial Action Task Force (FATF) de l’OCDE.

La Suisse, en tant que membre de plein droit de l’OCDE, aurait une position privilégiée pour influencer et freiner des développements qui nuisent à l’esprit d’entreprise, à lasouveraineté fiscale et au système du marché tout entier.  Ses représentants, soumis à des pressions de tous bords, ont souvent été excessivement prudents.  Dans quelques cas clés, cette prudence résultait même d’instructions peu réfléchies, qui avaient été inspirées par des intérêts particuliers.  [Par exemple, dans le cas de l’Avenant franco-suisse du 11 avril 1983, les organisations faîtières suisses de l’industrie et de la finance avaient réussi à faire passer les intérêts de quelques grandes banques avant ceux de l’économie dans son entier.  Même le Conseil fédéral avait déjà apposé sa signature sur la ligne pointillée de l’Avenant.  Néanmoins – et chose rarissime -, le Conseil national, in extremis, a refusé même l’entré en matière sur cette "trahison économique".  Ainsi il a suivi l’argumentation d’une opposition extraordinaire des contribuables et cantons lésés.  Cette opposition était appuyée par le Groupement des banquiers privés genevois qui, à cette époque, était encore dirigé par une vraie sentinelle du sanctuaire du patrimoine.  Voilà pour les défaillances intérieures que j’ai mentionnées.]

Vu les pots cassés de ces derniers temps, quelles sont les conséquences que la Suisse a tirées?

Selon mes observations, on est loin d’avoir appris la leçon.  Les défaillances continuent.  On se limite aux voies traditionnelles, on refuse de coordonner les efforts et on n’admet pas la nécessité de se doter des moyens adéquats.  Prenez la menace actuelle: elle a ses origines dans la soi-disante INTERFIPOL, laConvention concernant l’assistance administrative mutuelle en matière fiscale. "Complot orwellien" selon le Wall Street Journal du 7 juillet 1986, elle était l’objet d’une campagne d’opposition exemplaire: lors de son ouverture à la signature, le 25 janvier 1988, aucun gouvernement n’était présent.  Mais ce succès était gaspillé par inattention et inaction, permettant aux promoteurs de cette convention d’aller cueillir les signatures une à une jusqu’à son entrée en vigueur en 1995.  Ceux qui étaient chargés de la défense de la place financière suisse en portent une lourde responsabilité.  Ils ont raté plusieurs occasions de s’y opposer, soit par un véto formel, soit par des démarches adéquates.  Ils se sont contentés d’élégantes déclarations de principe et ont refusé de signer.  Manifestement, la Suisse ne peut plus se protéger des conséquences de tels "complots orwelliens" par les seules politesses d’usage.

Or, l’histoire se répète maintenant avec les mêmeserreurs d’action et d’omission face à l’actuelle campagne de l’OCDE contre la concurrence fiscale dommageable.  Résultat: on risque de transformer davantage encore nos banquiers en auxiliaires de la police.  Cela au moment même où les lois bancaires américaines sont en évolution vers une meilleure protection des clients.  Au moment où la compétition internationale pour les services bancaires est menée de plus en plus durement.  Et au moment où les Etats-Unis pourraient bien redevenir le plus grand paradis fiscal du monde -- et cela indépendamment du résultat des élections présidentielles de novembre prochain.

Alors, quelles options voyez-vous?

La guerre économique nous a été déclarée en 1974 dans un rapport du Sénat américain, menaçant les paradis fiscaux et les pays pratiquant le secret bancaire comme la Suisse, textuellement, d’"economic warfare", de guerre économique. Il est temps d’en prendre acte et d’agir en conséquence, en nous alliant à des camarades de combat fiables.  Parmi eux, quelques législateurs et autres américains pourront même jouer un rôle clé.  Les consultations que je viens de mener à Washington m’encouragent dans ce sens.  Dans ce pays dynamique, rien n’est jamais définitif.  Une lame de fond en faveur du sanctuaire du patrimoine ("wealth privacy") menace toute la culture du "big government".  Le 23 mars 1999, la Chambre des représentants a fait échouer le dernier essai d’imposer un contrôle orwellien sur la totalité des transactions d’un compte au moindre soupçon.  Cette décision législative est indicative, mais non concluante.  En fait, le gouvernement n’a pas abandonné ses efforts qu’il prétend indispensables pour combattre le crime organisé.

Dans cette situation, l’expérience et les services de la Suisse en matière de secret bancaire pourraient être utiles pour appuyer nos amis américains dans leurs efforts législatifs de réaliser une protection efficace des clients bancaires.

Comment une telle alliance pourrait-elle nous aider dans la "guerre économique" dont vous parliez?

Mes interlocuteurs me font croire qu’il y a matière à changer la donne à l’OCDE, c’est à dire au centre même de nos préoccupations.  Une campagne des deux côtés de l’Atlantique, inspirée des principes qui sont à la base même de l’OCDE, semble en effet réalisable.  A condition, bien entendu, qu’elle soit menée par des gens qui font partie de la solution et non du problème.  Mon souci d’efficacité exige que je ne vous en dise pas plus.
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(*)    Secrétaire de l’Association suisse de défense des investisseurs, Genève (e-mail: swissbit@solami.com).  Anton Keller est un conseiller parlementaire spécialisé en matière de droit bancaire, de sphère privée ("sentinelle du sanctuaire du patrimoine") et de questions énergétiques.  Il édite un site internet (www.solami.com/gold.htm).  Il a pris contact à Washington avec des membres du Congrès, du gouvernement et de groupes de pression.

         Geneva, 1 April 2000  -  On both sides of the Atlantic, individual privacy used to be a deeply enrooted common value.  Yet, in the last fifty years in particular, governments and office holders here and there have busily developed ever new reasons, excuses and pretexts for weakening, then braking and now all but totally abolishing real privacy as the hall mark of Western civilization and the market economy.
        Constitutional and lesser specific guarantees notwithstanding, in this upside-down world the transparent citizen as a servant of the state has largely replaced what was supposed to be the transparent state as a servant of the sovereign citizen.  But no tree grows infinitely into the sky.  And some current anti-liberty, anti-privacy and anti-market measures may actually hasten the day when even the most prestigious institutions, such as the Paris-based 29-nation Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation OECD, will have been brought back on their original track and ridden of their Orwellian outgrowths.
        Traditionally, and for historical reasons, Americans generally have cared a lot about personal privacy (house, medical records, gun ownership, etc.).  Yet - and until the recent, below-mentioned excesses of some U.S. administrations regarding bank client snoopings - on matters of their personal wealth, Americans have differed fundamentally with their European brethren who, since time immemorial, have felt the need to actively guard against confiscatory measures by whoever happened to be their ruler.  As illustrated by the Australians' long-time casual acceptance of multi-party telephone lines, pioneering societies have evolved differently from those of the Old Continent particularly in cultural and privacy matters.
        Thus, contrary to American and other non-European OECD countries' traditions, the Europeans' sense of privacy automatically covered wealth privacy.  As the French penchant for the right to anonymous gold possession illustrates, in some cases this has even been focussed on material wealth.  And that's not surprising either, given "unequaled protection" and "anonymity" going as far as an officially recognized new name each foreigner, criminal or not, can still receive upon joining the French Foreign Legion (Michael Pollak, "Foreign Legion Wants You", International Herald Tribune", 3 April 2000).  Which, incidently, may make the Foreign Legion the world's most loyal practitioner of the state principles formulated centuries ago not least by Adam Smith and Whately, namely:

the state may legitimately impose financial or blood sacrifices on its citizens and foreigners - which may seek refuge on its territory for themselves and/or for their wealth - only "in return for the protection afforded by the Sovereign." (as quoted in The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, vol. XVII, 1989, p.679)