Switzerland

Switzerland, for decades a paragon of safety in finance, is engaged in a high-risk strategy to protect its export-driven economy, literally betting the bank in a fight to contain the prices of Swiss products sold abroad, The Wall Street Journal reported. The nation's central bank is printing and selling as many Swiss francs as needed to keep its currency from climbing against the euro, wagering an amount approaching Switzerland's total national output, and, in the process, turning from button-down conservative to the globe's biggest risk-taker.

Switzerland's oldest private bank yesterday admitted to helping Americans evade U.S. taxes, the first time a foreign financial institution has pleaded guilty to tax law violations, the New York Times DealBook blog reported today. Representatives for Wegelin & Company, a Swiss bank founded in 1741, acknowledged that for nearly a decade the firm helped dozens of wealthy American customers dodge taxes by hiding more than $1.2 billion in secret accounts. As part of guilty plea, Wegelin agreed to pay $74 million in fines, restitution and forfeiture proceeds to the U.S. government.

As times get tougher, discontent about Swiss tax breaks is mounting, Reuters reported in an analysis. Cash-strapped foreign governments have already chipped away at the secrecy that allows rich individuals to store tax-free funds in Swiss bank accounts. Now Europe's governments have turned the spotlight on the incentives Switzerland offers companies. Swiss official company tax rates of around 21 percent compare with 33 percent in France and 29 percent in Germany, according to a 2011 survey by accountants KPMG; often companies in Switzerland actually pay much less.

Switzerland-based trader Gunvor said on Monday that operations had resumed at its German Ingolstadt refinery, acquired from insolvent refiner Petroplus earlier this year, Reuters reported. Gunvor, which is co-owned by a Russian tycoon and chief executive Torbjorn Tornqvist, bought the 100,000 barrels per day plant in May from the insolvent Petroplus to build on its presence in Europe. "We intend to build upon the good and enduring customer relationships, and enlarge our trading activities in Germany and the Alpine region," said Tornqvist in an emailed statement.

Creditors of bankrupt refiner Petroplus's UK operations, mainly the Coryton refinery, will be paid a maximum of just 6.4 percent of their claims, said Steven Pearson, a joint administrator at PwC. The creditors will receive $102 million to $135 million, while their claims are estimated to total $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion, Pearson said on Tuesday. He said that losses of $22-$31 million, sustained in runnning the refinery between January and June, had reduced the amount available for distribution and demonstrated why he had to take the decision to close the plant down.

Swiss steel and coal trader Carbofer General Trading (CGT) was declared bankrupt last month, officials in its home town Lugano said on Friday, shortly after its shipping branch Carbofer Maritime, Reuters reported. CGT, once a large player in the spot coal and steel trade, was declared bankrupt on May 16, the bankruptcy office of Lugano told Reuters, as market conditions worsened and financing froze up. Its Copenhagen-based shipping branch Carbofer Maritime Trading (CMT) was declared bankrupt about a month earlier, the Danish Sea and Maritime court said.

Insolvent Swiss oil refiner Petroplus owes Algerian state energy firm Sonatrach over $250 million in unpaid bills, an Algerian energy sector official told Reuters. Sonatrach has not received payment for several cargoes of crude it delivered to the refiner, the source said, without specifying what action, if any, the Algerian firm planned to take to recover the money. Late last year, Petroplus said lenders had frozen a credit facility which it was using to buy crude for delivery to its refineries. It filed for insolvency protection in January.

Switzerland agreed Thursday to a revised tax deal with Germany under which it would pay billions of dollars on funds hidden in its banks by German tax dodgers, the latest step in an international charm offensive that is meant to salvage at least some of the country’s famous banking secrecy, the International Herald Tribune reported.

The administrator of insolvent refiner Petroplus has applied to a Swiss court for a six-month extension of a debt moratorium for the Cressier refinery, Reuters reported. Switzerland's 68,000 barrel per day Cressier plant, one of just two refineries in the landlocked country, is up for sale and the deadline for offers was Monday. The court had previously given the plant a two months' grace period of protection from its creditors pending offers for its purchase. The administrator, Wenger-Plattner, said in a statement it had made the application for the extension.

Private investor Gary Klesch said on Thursday that his Swiss-based company has submitted the only bid for insolvent refiner Petroplus' French plant Petit-Couronne, Reuters reported. Asked if it was true that his firm had made an offer for the refiner, he said: "It is. We were told by the court there were no other bids ...We are in negotiations on the others." Klesch also confirmed an earlier report that his firm had pledged to invest 160 million euros in the refinery over five years and to retain around 410 of 550 jobs.