News

The bailout of Cyprus came at a painful price for the clients of the two largest banks of the island: A haircut of 30% -40% on all deposits above 100.000 EUR was convened by the Eurogroup and the Republic of Cyprus amongst other radical measures (merger and creation of a bad bank). Forcing depositors to undertake risks and exposures is not new albeit extremely rare in times of peace. For many legal analysts the legality of such radical measure is heavily contested as it is hurting on some fundamental values of our societies. We are now evaluating whether these measures are in violation of  the Right of Property as it is defined and protected through the  European chart of human rights (First Protocol, art 1) which has been adopted and ratified by all E.U. member States.

The Greek sovereign bonds haircut and the unilateral postponement of the settlement fo the remaining dues by the Greek State to much later days has been in many cases taken the judicial way of ruling whether the State was enabled to do such a unilateral action in spite of its initial agreement and whether the liability of the State remains withheld towards the investors who chose to buy these State bonds based on an initial agreement that is no longer valid.

Compromise has been reached for an out of court settlement between our clients and Citibank, Greece concerning the Lehman products.

Today in Bern, Federal Councillor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf and the Greek Ambassador in Switzerland, John Mourikis, signed a revised double taxation agreement (DTA) in the area of taxes on income and capital. The DTA also contains provisions on the exchange of information which were negotiated in line with the parameters decided by the Federal Council and are in accordance with the OECD standard. The revised DTA will contribute to the further positive development of bilateral economic relations.