Heads Roll At Leading Swiss Bank

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

31 January 2003

According to a report from the Swissinfo news service on Thursday, heads are set to roll at the cantonal bank of Vaud (BCV) following the discovery of accounting irregularities involving high-level personnel.

In a statement released this week the cantonal authority, which is the majority shareholder in the loss-making bank, revealed that activities uncovered by Ticino public prosecutor, Paolo Bernasconi during his investigation included: forgery of documents, breach of fiduciary duty, the provision of false information on commercial enterprises, and breaches of Swiss federal banking law.

Swissinfo revealed that BCV vice president, Pierre Fischer, director general Ralph Ziegler, head of compliance Bernard Krahenbuhl, and secretary general Jean-Pierre Launaz have all been ordered to leave the bank with immediate effect.

However, the full extent of the manipulation of the bank's accounts is not yet known, as the head of canton Vaud's economics department, Jacqueline Maurer explained:

'Mr Bernasconi cited four in his report and there are certainly, probably others,' she announced, continuing:

'Our expert showed that the figures were manipulated on the basis of decisions taken by those in power, that is to say members of the board and apparently members of the internal committee of the bank at that time.'

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