Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

Switzerland is very angry against the OECD.
By trying to please everyone the OECD is now caught in its own trap of kindness and political games.
Its credibility is now in question.

As I wrote in my second letter to Angel Gurria, the solution is simple: if States that do not have signed yet the required agreements are not happy with the OECD, let them leave.

Considering the ridiculous amount of their contributions to the OECD budget, it will quickly be compensated by the advantages for the other States to recover funds escaped in the jurisdictions.

As far as Switzerland is concerned, I had warned Hans Rudolf Merz’s services to beware of Luxembourg, as Switzerland is more credible than Luxembourg in the implementation of the international recommendations in business ethics.

This is what I explained in two articles in French published in Banque & Finance in Switzerland:
"Suisse ou Luxembourg: quelle est la place la plus crédible en matière d’éthique?" (January 2007)
“La Suisse est-elle un paradis fiscal?" (septembre 2008) http://www.banque-finance.ch/numeros/93/70.pdf

My conclusion is that despite banking secrecy and low taxes in Switzerland I can see in this jurisdiction a positive framework in favor of business ethics that I cannot see in Luxembourg.

The political error of the Swiss authorities was (and still is) to bet on Luxembourg to advocate their positions within the European Union without seeing that Luxembourg was a manipulator.

The political error of the Luxembourg authorities was (and still is) to ignore what the other jurisdictions are doing, otherwise they would have realised that ratios to compare Luxembourg with other jurisdictions are definitely not in favour of Luxembourg, whose figures are not credible :
- number of disciplinary actions for auditors : ex Luxembourg v. Belgium
- number of declarations of suspicion : ex Luxembourg v. Monaco
- …

In a democracy when political authorities fail, there is a solution.