タックス・ヘイブン：スイス刑法専門家の解説
"Switzerland must now seek allies'
Professor Mark Pieth warns Germany against the purchase of data
www.nzz.ch
February 3, 2010
"Switzerland must now seek allies'
Professor Mark Pieth warns Germany against the purchase of data
With the announcement of the purchase of 1500 Germany Customer signaled the world, in general interested in buying of illegally acquired data to be.
Prior to the criminal law professor Mark Pieth warned in an interview with NZZ Online.
With the announcement of the purchase of 1500 Germany Customer signaled the world, in general interested in buying of illegally acquired data to be.
Prior to the criminal law professor Mark Pieth warned in an interview with NZZ Online.
Interview: ZB
NZZ Online: Mr. Pieth, the German Chancellor and Finance Minister Schäuble want to buy the 1500 customer data from Switzerland.
Westerwelle foreign minister urges caution, however - is at odds with the German government or is it here to a tactical maneuver?
Mark Pieth: It could, of course, tactics.
But first of all is the whole affair to a populist maneuver.
The German government wants to declare as many tax evaders themselves.
If the goal is reached, then, is a backtracking possible?
No, I think that the CD is purchased.
For the present German government is weak and virtually imprisoned in populism.
Since there is also the biggest problem.
It has given the opposition simply does not have the courage to say no to such an offer.
Germany risked a great deal with such an action.
Be interested Yes, because then Germany signaled the world, generally in the purchase of illegally acquired information.
There's also because, ultimately, less a problem of receiving stolen property or illegally acquired data recoverability.
It is my opinion, especially about the attack by one state against another state.
And therefore, that Germany is the international law into their own hands.
Cooperation is a good thing but self-service is not desirable.
What is dangerous about this approach?
Let me give you that I am no friend of banking secrecy in the traditional sense and find it good if the tax treaty between the two countries will be renegotiated.
But I am convinced that Germany must take particular interest in their own distance from such actions.
For exactly the same thing could happen to Germany from the other side, for example, if the U.S. agrees to buy stolen bank account details of German clients.
How to respond to Switzerland?
It is important that now is not overreacting.
There are indeed several ways to respond.
First, the mutual assistance could be frozen.
The U.S. would respond, they would say that Germany is no longer the rule of law and is contrary to public policy.
Only the U.S. is much larger and stronger than Switzerland.
Another option would cancel the whole cooperation between the two countries but would also, Switzerland Risiki very much, not least because Germany had the opportunity to mobilize the EU.
What do you suggest then?
There is only a promising path.
Switzerland, with Germany must sit at a table and discuss it like they do in the future in relation to each other between two sovereign states.
How do you want to cooperate with each other in the future?
Search for this route, Switzerland must now allies.
They say that the 1500 data, which Germany wants to buy from Switzerland, could not be recyclable.
What do you mean?
First of course I do not know what exactly to data on the aforementioned CD.
But it is reasonable to assume that not all customer information, which may extend partially so far in the past, are on this CD on it.
Is it, and it is not ruled out, while just a name and a balancing item, then it is in a criminal case in Germany, which will be launched after buying the CD must not be used.
To evaluate the whole case, you must submit to the German authorities, the entire customer records and information can be obtained only through the request for legal assistance from Switzerland.
Mark Pieth is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Basel.
He is also President of the OECD Working Group on combating corruption in international business and president of the Foundation of the Basel Institute on Governance.
Swiss criminal law on tax evasion
"We have built so much crap"
www.spiegel.de
February 3, 2010
Switzerland as a tax haven under pressure as never before - now, the financial industry in the country be brought under control, calls for the Basel criminal lawyer Mark Pieth.
In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, he criticizes political and monetary giant "Most Swiss bankers want to enrich themselves."
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The federal government is poised to buy a CD with the data from 1500 tax sinners.
The people should have invested their money in Switzerland.
If you were in the place of Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble - would you strike?
Pieth: I prefer a self-serious co-operation by the German authorities.
Germany should pursue its own interests no cowboy practice.
But I cannot imagine that show now, many German voluntarily with problematic accounts in Switzerland itself, in order to obtain a reduced sentence.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The relationship between the Swiss and the German government was miserable at the time of the grand coalition.
The purchase was going to destroy the relationship with the black-yellow government.
Pieth: Especially helpful would be to purchase the CD certainly not.
But the affair demonstrates one thing above all: There is a huge problem if you want to switch from one state to an illegal legal.
The banks cannot easily deliver customer nurtured for many years to the slaughter.
This was foreseeable a decade, that would fall within the Swiss banking secrecy.
But Most Swiss bankers are shopkeepers, so people who want to enrich themselves, not strategists.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Has made at least the policy ideas?
Pieth: The Swiss government is quite weak, with its annually changing President.
The bankers were able to reach easily see that there is no discussion about banking secrecy.
Only when it became known last year that UBS at the "Art Basel Miami" systematically recruited people and brought their money in Switzerland before the U.S. Treasury in security, the bankers had to give way.
Almost overnight, hundreds of bank account details were sent without any legal basis across the Atlantic.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In the meantime however, there is a ruling by the Swiss Federal Administrative Court, which allowed thousands more data will no longer be transmitted.
Although there is an agreement.
Also double taxation agreement with France and Italy are on ice.
Means that Switzerland soon again on the OECD list of tax havens, from which it was removed in 2009?
Pieth: The problems with Italy are very personalized.
The relationship with Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti, is simply bad.
By contrast, the Americans react relatively calmly.
You have a problem: If the UBS break would threaten consequences similar to that of the Lehman bankruptcy.
Especially as the UBS has also lent the U.S. government money.
Moreover, under the pressure of events have refunded thousands of Americans Selbstanzeige.
Pragmatic thinking we need even the promised information anymore.
SPIEGEL: But it does matter of principle.
Was the Yielding of the Swiss So just a quick sign of weakness?
Pieth: Yes.
Switzerland intends to avoid in any case, the automatic data exchange, ask for some EU countries.
But one is prepared to respond to requests for assistance and to formalize as much.
We were here for years, the distinction between fraud - that is the really bad guys - and tax - that is, those who have just forgotten to submit their taxes.
These times come to an end.
As a compromise, is now being discussed to bring one flat rate withholding tax and transfer to the home country.
That would be a solution that could be implemented quickly.
These funds could also be legalized.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Were there not many abusive practices?
Pieth: The Swiss may be Kramer, but they also have an accountant soul.
Figures is not falsify them.
Even in the largest Gangstereien, I have encountered, one has only tallied a good boy.
However, a withholding tax may, depending on what the tax law applies in the partner country to be for the account holder a good deal.
And a bad one for his home country.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: tax refugees from Germany are one thing.
But Switzerland is also a haven for dirty money from developing countries.
Pieth: Certainly.
Dealing with illegal assets is extremely difficult.
This is also reflected in the billions, who embezzled the dictators and accumulated over decades in Swiss accounts.
Many funds have now been frozen.
But it can take decades to reduce the amounts of money in the country of origin.
So it was with the hundreds of millions left by the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha in Swiss banks, so it was with the money of the former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why does it take so long?
Pieth: It must be demonstrated that such property actually come from criminal activities.
But what if there is no functioning legal system in the country?
Take Haiti.
The millions the former ruler Duvalier terror were frozen in our 1986
Now, the top Swiss court has cleared the funds paid to a family foundation of Duvalier.
For Switzerland, this is a PR disaster.
2.
Part: "The Swiss bank account is a fixed term
SPIEGEL: Some cases are simply appalling.
For example, when the funds of Mobutu Sese Seko, former dictator of the Congo.
Pieth: Right.
The federal prosecutor has decided that in this case, the allegation of money laundering is time-barred.
The money went back to the widow of Mobutu.
My personal opinion is that Switzerland owes the people of Congo exactly that amount, because it has frittered away the cause.
But we are writing a law that will facilitate the resolution of such assets.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The effort is really to make a clean sweep?
Pieth: Yes.
The problem is: How do we get away from our miserable image?
It's take a thriller by John Le Carré or something in his hand: the Swiss bank account is a fixed term.
And the country has for years done nothing against that reputation, it has indeed benefited from it in some way.
SPIEGEL: Do you think that the bankers join the recent reversal of policy?
Pieth: You will need.
I think the issue of money laundering is already.
When it comes to fraud, we are still in the transition phase.
I will not give a clear signal.
There are still people in Switzerland, where you can find help for financial machinations, even if they no longer stand behind the bank counter.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Who do you think?
Pieth: There are financial intermediaries.
This can be a trustee, but even lawyers are bold.
You have the attorney-client privilege, banking secrecy and can provide customers with a dummy company to build anywhere in the world.
So you have plenty of hiding veil to tax evasion.
There are still many places in the world where you can deposit dirty money.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The international financial world is not, therefore, become better, just different?
Pieth: As far as really criminal money as drug stores or embezzlement, has changed the world already.
The judicial options are much better than before.
But there's always the official and the unofficial world.
Despite the formal efforts of untaxed money you can still hide well in Singapore.
Money laundering works best in Cyprus, because the controls are there bad.
Shell companies may be open well in the Virgin Islands or Panama.
The financial intermediaries who sit in Geneva and Lugano, know each other well out there.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You are not controlled?
Pieth: Although you have been recently placed under the money laundering law - if it stinks to high heaven, they must also report the so.
But thousands of people in the industry operate.
I doubt that it maintains the level of control.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Nevertheless, many Swiss bank customers, creating jitters away their money.
How hard it takes the field?
Pieth: It's true, it flows from many funds.
But I am sure that the process very controlled.
Many Swiss bankers are taking their customers away and say: It is a bit hot in here, maybe it is better to take your money elsewhere under.
Many institutions have offices in Singapore, Hong Kong or elsewhere.
Apart from the Swiss have a bounceback.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does that mean?
Pieth: We have built so much crap we have broken embargoes, we have stockpiled a large part of international drug money, until international pressure was too great.
And yet we've always managed to burnish our reputation as a financial center again.
The boss of a major bank already said we would not even bank secrecy, Swiss bankers are simply good.
So I wonder, though, why it has for years maintained this siege mentality.
criminal lawyer Pieth criticizes German "Wild West" strategy
www.handelszeitung.ch
February 3, 2010
Berne (AWP / sda) - The Basel criminal lawyer Mark Pieth sees the proposed purchase of stolen bank data by the West German government as a "wild" strategy.
Germany had declared it off a cascade.
The tenor was' Bring stolen data, they are bought."
Thus, the neighboring country was contrary to good faith, "said Pieth on Wednesday in the" Daily Conversation "by Swiss Radio DRS.
The law was put under pressure.
The signal was dangerous.
This invite data thieves to sell their loot.
This constitutes an encroachment on Switzerland and contrary to the principles of double tax treaties.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, are located in a popular low.
With the fight against tax cheats, they can score points.
The response capabilities of Switzerland Pieth seen as limited.
The data that Germany wanted to buy, but hardly sufficient as proof of tax fraud.
The German authorities would therefore probably not around Swiss assistance.
This Switzerland could then deny having regard to the criminal origins of the data.
Another step is the refusal of the administrative and legal noting that Switzerland is cooperating only with constitutional states.
Such muscle-flexing, but given the sheer size ratio'm hardly in question.
Switzerland is now on "deep mess" himself to blame, was Pieth.
For 10 years, had political and financial world to the problematic distinction between tax evasion and fraud known.
But they had taken refuge in a trench.
That banking secrecy will now open of not hot for a long time that Switzerland was a self-service store.
A solution must be sought through diplomatic channels.
Professor Mark Pieth warns Germany against the purchase of data
www.nzz.ch
February 3, 2010
"Switzerland must now seek allies'
Professor Mark Pieth warns Germany against the purchase of data
With the announcement of the purchase of 1500 Germany Customer signaled the world, in general interested in buying of illegally acquired data to be.
Prior to the criminal law professor Mark Pieth warned in an interview with NZZ Online.
With the announcement of the purchase of 1500 Germany Customer signaled the world, in general interested in buying of illegally acquired data to be.
Prior to the criminal law professor Mark Pieth warned in an interview with NZZ Online.
Interview: ZB
NZZ Online: Mr. Pieth, the German Chancellor and Finance Minister Schäuble want to buy the 1500 customer data from Switzerland.
Westerwelle foreign minister urges caution, however - is at odds with the German government or is it here to a tactical maneuver?
Mark Pieth: It could, of course, tactics.
But first of all is the whole affair to a populist maneuver.
The German government wants to declare as many tax evaders themselves.
If the goal is reached, then, is a backtracking possible?
No, I think that the CD is purchased.
For the present German government is weak and virtually imprisoned in populism.
Since there is also the biggest problem.
It has given the opposition simply does not have the courage to say no to such an offer.
Germany risked a great deal with such an action.
Be interested Yes, because then Germany signaled the world, generally in the purchase of illegally acquired information.
There's also because, ultimately, less a problem of receiving stolen property or illegally acquired data recoverability.
It is my opinion, especially about the attack by one state against another state.
And therefore, that Germany is the international law into their own hands.
Cooperation is a good thing but self-service is not desirable.
What is dangerous about this approach?
Let me give you that I am no friend of banking secrecy in the traditional sense and find it good if the tax treaty between the two countries will be renegotiated.
But I am convinced that Germany must take particular interest in their own distance from such actions.
For exactly the same thing could happen to Germany from the other side, for example, if the U.S. agrees to buy stolen bank account details of German clients.
How to respond to Switzerland?
It is important that now is not overreacting.
There are indeed several ways to respond.
First, the mutual assistance could be frozen.
The U.S. would respond, they would say that Germany is no longer the rule of law and is contrary to public policy.
Only the U.S. is much larger and stronger than Switzerland.
Another option would cancel the whole cooperation between the two countries but would also, Switzerland Risiki very much, not least because Germany had the opportunity to mobilize the EU.
What do you suggest then?
There is only a promising path.
Switzerland, with Germany must sit at a table and discuss it like they do in the future in relation to each other between two sovereign states.
How do you want to cooperate with each other in the future?
Search for this route, Switzerland must now allies.
They say that the 1500 data, which Germany wants to buy from Switzerland, could not be recyclable.
What do you mean?
First of course I do not know what exactly to data on the aforementioned CD.
But it is reasonable to assume that not all customer information, which may extend partially so far in the past, are on this CD on it.
Is it, and it is not ruled out, while just a name and a balancing item, then it is in a criminal case in Germany, which will be launched after buying the CD must not be used.
To evaluate the whole case, you must submit to the German authorities, the entire customer records and information can be obtained only through the request for legal assistance from Switzerland.
Mark Pieth is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Basel.
He is also President of the OECD Working Group on combating corruption in international business and president of the Foundation of the Basel Institute on Governance.
Swiss criminal law on tax evasion
"We have built so much crap"
www.spiegel.de
February 3, 2010
Switzerland as a tax haven under pressure as never before - now, the financial industry in the country be brought under control, calls for the Basel criminal lawyer Mark Pieth.
In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, he criticizes political and monetary giant "Most Swiss bankers want to enrich themselves."
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The federal government is poised to buy a CD with the data from 1500 tax sinners.
The people should have invested their money in Switzerland.
If you were in the place of Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble - would you strike?
Pieth: I prefer a self-serious co-operation by the German authorities.
Germany should pursue its own interests no cowboy practice.
But I cannot imagine that show now, many German voluntarily with problematic accounts in Switzerland itself, in order to obtain a reduced sentence.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The relationship between the Swiss and the German government was miserable at the time of the grand coalition.
The purchase was going to destroy the relationship with the black-yellow government.
Pieth: Especially helpful would be to purchase the CD certainly not.
But the affair demonstrates one thing above all: There is a huge problem if you want to switch from one state to an illegal legal.
The banks cannot easily deliver customer nurtured for many years to the slaughter.
This was foreseeable a decade, that would fall within the Swiss banking secrecy.
But Most Swiss bankers are shopkeepers, so people who want to enrich themselves, not strategists.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Has made at least the policy ideas?
Pieth: The Swiss government is quite weak, with its annually changing President.
The bankers were able to reach easily see that there is no discussion about banking secrecy.
Only when it became known last year that UBS at the "Art Basel Miami" systematically recruited people and brought their money in Switzerland before the U.S. Treasury in security, the bankers had to give way.
Almost overnight, hundreds of bank account details were sent without any legal basis across the Atlantic.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In the meantime however, there is a ruling by the Swiss Federal Administrative Court, which allowed thousands more data will no longer be transmitted.
Although there is an agreement.
Also double taxation agreement with France and Italy are on ice.
Means that Switzerland soon again on the OECD list of tax havens, from which it was removed in 2009?
Pieth: The problems with Italy are very personalized.
The relationship with Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti, is simply bad.
By contrast, the Americans react relatively calmly.
You have a problem: If the UBS break would threaten consequences similar to that of the Lehman bankruptcy.
Especially as the UBS has also lent the U.S. government money.
Moreover, under the pressure of events have refunded thousands of Americans Selbstanzeige.
Pragmatic thinking we need even the promised information anymore.
SPIEGEL: But it does matter of principle.
Was the Yielding of the Swiss So just a quick sign of weakness?
Pieth: Yes.
Switzerland intends to avoid in any case, the automatic data exchange, ask for some EU countries.
But one is prepared to respond to requests for assistance and to formalize as much.
We were here for years, the distinction between fraud - that is the really bad guys - and tax - that is, those who have just forgotten to submit their taxes.
These times come to an end.
As a compromise, is now being discussed to bring one flat rate withholding tax and transfer to the home country.
That would be a solution that could be implemented quickly.
These funds could also be legalized.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Were there not many abusive practices?
Pieth: The Swiss may be Kramer, but they also have an accountant soul.
Figures is not falsify them.
Even in the largest Gangstereien, I have encountered, one has only tallied a good boy.
However, a withholding tax may, depending on what the tax law applies in the partner country to be for the account holder a good deal.
And a bad one for his home country.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: tax refugees from Germany are one thing.
But Switzerland is also a haven for dirty money from developing countries.
Pieth: Certainly.
Dealing with illegal assets is extremely difficult.
This is also reflected in the billions, who embezzled the dictators and accumulated over decades in Swiss accounts.
Many funds have now been frozen.
But it can take decades to reduce the amounts of money in the country of origin.
So it was with the hundreds of millions left by the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha in Swiss banks, so it was with the money of the former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why does it take so long?
Pieth: It must be demonstrated that such property actually come from criminal activities.
But what if there is no functioning legal system in the country?
Take Haiti.
The millions the former ruler Duvalier terror were frozen in our 1986
Now, the top Swiss court has cleared the funds paid to a family foundation of Duvalier.
For Switzerland, this is a PR disaster.
2.
Part: "The Swiss bank account is a fixed term
SPIEGEL: Some cases are simply appalling.
For example, when the funds of Mobutu Sese Seko, former dictator of the Congo.
Pieth: Right.
The federal prosecutor has decided that in this case, the allegation of money laundering is time-barred.
The money went back to the widow of Mobutu.
My personal opinion is that Switzerland owes the people of Congo exactly that amount, because it has frittered away the cause.
But we are writing a law that will facilitate the resolution of such assets.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The effort is really to make a clean sweep?
Pieth: Yes.
The problem is: How do we get away from our miserable image?
It's take a thriller by John Le Carré or something in his hand: the Swiss bank account is a fixed term.
And the country has for years done nothing against that reputation, it has indeed benefited from it in some way.
SPIEGEL: Do you think that the bankers join the recent reversal of policy?
Pieth: You will need.
I think the issue of money laundering is already.
When it comes to fraud, we are still in the transition phase.
I will not give a clear signal.
There are still people in Switzerland, where you can find help for financial machinations, even if they no longer stand behind the bank counter.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Who do you think?
Pieth: There are financial intermediaries.
This can be a trustee, but even lawyers are bold.
You have the attorney-client privilege, banking secrecy and can provide customers with a dummy company to build anywhere in the world.
So you have plenty of hiding veil to tax evasion.
There are still many places in the world where you can deposit dirty money.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The international financial world is not, therefore, become better, just different?
Pieth: As far as really criminal money as drug stores or embezzlement, has changed the world already.
The judicial options are much better than before.
But there's always the official and the unofficial world.
Despite the formal efforts of untaxed money you can still hide well in Singapore.
Money laundering works best in Cyprus, because the controls are there bad.
Shell companies may be open well in the Virgin Islands or Panama.
The financial intermediaries who sit in Geneva and Lugano, know each other well out there.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You are not controlled?
Pieth: Although you have been recently placed under the money laundering law - if it stinks to high heaven, they must also report the so.
But thousands of people in the industry operate.
I doubt that it maintains the level of control.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Nevertheless, many Swiss bank customers, creating jitters away their money.
How hard it takes the field?
Pieth: It's true, it flows from many funds.
But I am sure that the process very controlled.
Many Swiss bankers are taking their customers away and say: It is a bit hot in here, maybe it is better to take your money elsewhere under.
Many institutions have offices in Singapore, Hong Kong or elsewhere.
Apart from the Swiss have a bounceback.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does that mean?
Pieth: We have built so much crap we have broken embargoes, we have stockpiled a large part of international drug money, until international pressure was too great.
And yet we've always managed to burnish our reputation as a financial center again.
The boss of a major bank already said we would not even bank secrecy, Swiss bankers are simply good.
So I wonder, though, why it has for years maintained this siege mentality.
criminal lawyer Pieth criticizes German "Wild West" strategy
www.handelszeitung.ch
February 3, 2010
Berne (AWP / sda) - The Basel criminal lawyer Mark Pieth sees the proposed purchase of stolen bank data by the West German government as a "wild" strategy.
Germany had declared it off a cascade.
The tenor was' Bring stolen data, they are bought."
Thus, the neighboring country was contrary to good faith, "said Pieth on Wednesday in the" Daily Conversation "by Swiss Radio DRS.
The law was put under pressure.
The signal was dangerous.
This invite data thieves to sell their loot.
This constitutes an encroachment on Switzerland and contrary to the principles of double tax treaties.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, are located in a popular low.
With the fight against tax cheats, they can score points.
The response capabilities of Switzerland Pieth seen as limited.
The data that Germany wanted to buy, but hardly sufficient as proof of tax fraud.
The German authorities would therefore probably not around Swiss assistance.
This Switzerland could then deny having regard to the criminal origins of the data.
Another step is the refusal of the administrative and legal noting that Switzerland is cooperating only with constitutional states.
Such muscle-flexing, but given the sheer size ratio'm hardly in question.
Switzerland is now on "deep mess" himself to blame, was Pieth.
For 10 years, had political and financial world to the problematic distinction between tax evasion and fraud known.
But they had taken refuge in a trench.
That banking secrecy will now open of not hot for a long time that Switzerland was a self-service store.
A solution must be sought through diplomatic channels.
"タックス・ヘイブン：スイス刑法専門家の解説" へのコメントを書く