The power the US wields over the Swiss financial centre
In January 2012 Konrad Hummler, partner of Swiss private bank Wegelin, had to sell the bank overnight because he was threatened with indictment in the United States. In hindsight, the story tells us so much more than the end of a private bank. In the end, things had to happen very quickly: Wegelin’s management sold a large part of the bank to Raiffeisen in just three weeks in January 2012. Do you want to read our weekly top stories? Subscribe here. All that was left was the side of the business dealing with US customers – a “bad bank”, so to speak. The emergency sale was forced by pressure from the US – and remains an example of how much power the US exerts in the global financial sector. The story doesn’t begin with Wegelin but with UBS, which came into the crosshairs of the US authorities after the financial and economic crisis of 2008. The big Swiss bank was accused of aiding and abetting tax evasion. UBS helped American customers hide their money from the US tax authorities.