Hildebrand affair

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The Hildebrand affair (also known as the dollar affair ) is the affair of dollar transactions via an account of the then President of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), Philipp Hildebrand .

This became known because an employee of Bank Sarasin, as a whistleblower, passed on customer data from Hildebrand to the lawyer and SVP canton politician Hermann Lei . Lei forwarded the documents to SVP National Councilor Christoph Blocher and to the journalist Urs Paul Engeler from Weltwoche .

Exchange rate policy of the SNB

After the Swiss franc, as a “safe haven” currency, gained increasing strength in the summer of 2011 as a result of the euro crisis , the Swiss tourism and export industry called for a fixed lower limit for the franc-euro exchange rate. On September 6, 2011, the National Bank set a minimum rate of CHF 1.20 per euro.

Course of the Hildebrand affair

On January 3, 2012, Bank Sarasin announced that customer data had been stolen by an employee of the bank and passed on to external third parties without authorization. The injured customer was the family of the President of the Swiss National Bank, Philipp Hildebrand . The employee who worked in IT support was fired. He turned himself in to the police. Bank Sarasin also filed criminal charges against third parties. On January 13, 2012, a criminal investigation was initiated against Lei and the Zurich SVP cantonal councilor Claudio Schmid for violating the Banking Act ( Art. 47 BankG) or participating in it. Lei is also accused of violating professional secrecy. Various house searches and interviews took place.

In December 2011 and January 2012 came Hildebrand because of insider trading allegations , in particular due to a foreign exchange purchase of 504'000 US dollar against the Swiss franc his wife Kashya Hildebrand in August 2011 on his account - according to him without his prior knowledge - prior to the determination of the Minimum euro exchange rate of 1.20 Swiss francs per euro by the Swiss National Bank in September 2011, heavily under pressure.

Hermann Lei passed the Bank Sarasin account documents to National Councilor Christoph Blocher. Blocher first informed the Federal Council, as the controlling authority of the SNB, about the transactions, then the bank council commissioned the auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to investigate the bank transactions of the Hildebrand family in 2011. PWC came to the conclusion that there was no violation of the regulations on proprietary transactions in financial instruments and that all transactions were carried out in accordance with the rules. According to a representation by Urs Paul Engeler in the weekly newspaper Die Weltwoche , Philipp Hildebrand is said to have commissioned the controversial foreign exchange transactions himself. Hildebrand denied these allegations. Weltwoche received the documents from Hermann Lei.

On January 9, 2012, the Swiss National Bank announced that Hildebrand was leaving his office with immediate effect. In the press conference that followed, Hildebrand justified his resignation by stating that “in view of the ongoing public debate surrounding these financial transactions, after thorough examination of all the documentation and thorough reflection since the media conference, he came to the conclusion that“ it is not possible to unite to provide conclusive evidence that my wife initiated the foreign exchange transaction on August 15th without my knowledge. " He confirmed the statement with a word of honor . With his resignation, he also published new documents that did not clearly exonerate him. According to the documents, Hildebrand gave his basic consent for his wife's dollar transactions in the run-up to the controversial dollar purchase in August 2011, but did not order it.

Vice-President Thomas Jordan took over the chairmanship of the SNB Governing Board on an interim basis .

In January 2012, the Bank Council of the SNB commissioned the auditing company KPMG Switzerland to review and analyze all financial transactions of Philipp Hildebrand and all members of the Extended Board of Directors and their relatives (with the exception of Kashya Hildebrand) of the SNB for the Period from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2011. KPMG Switzerland published its audit report on March 7, 2012. KPMG found no violations of the regulations. In mid-March 2012, the National Bank expanded the audit mandate to include the accounts of his wife Kashya Hildebrand. On April 25, 2012 the result of the examination of the private and business accounts of Kashya Hildebrand followed. The review included all foreign exchange transactions from CHF 20,000 and all other transactions from CHF 100,000 in the period from January 1, 2009 to the end of December 2011. No violations of the regulations were found.

On February 17, 2012, the President of the Bank Council of the SNB, Hansueli Raggenbass, announced that he would no longer run for election in spring 2012 at the end of his term of office from 2008 to 2012. Raggenbass had come under pressure because of his crisis management.

On March 12, 2012, the National Bank's board of directors passed new regulations for proprietary transactions by members of the bank's management. This after the previous regulations were criticized as too lax. The stricter regulations came into force on May 1, 2012. After National Councilor Christoph Blocher was asked in January 2012 by the Zurich Public Prosecutor's office as a so-called person to provide information about the position between the accused and the witness in the Code of Criminal Procedure, she opened criminal proceedings against him in March 2012 for violating the Banking Act and left his villa in Herrliberg as well as the offices of his Robinvest AG in neighboring Männedorf . The subject of the proceedings is to examine whether Blocher was involved in the disclosure of stolen bank data by the IT staff at Bank Sarasin , which is relevant under criminal law . Blocher invokes his parliamentary immunity , which is controversial. The examination was carried out on April 25, 2012 by the National Council's Immunity Commission. The commission decided that, despite being elected to the National Council, Blocher cannot invoke immunity for his actions before he was sworn in to the National Council on December 5, 2011. For acts after being sworn in, however, according to the will of the commission, he should be covered by the scope of immunity. On May 31, 2012, the Council of States legal commission on Blocher's immunity met. The commission was of the same opinion on one point that Blocher had no immunity before he was sworn in to the National Council. Furthermore, the commission decided that after Blocher was sworn in, he was not entitled to immunity. The business then went back to the National Council commission to adjust the differences and then back to the Council of States Legal Commission. If in this second round even one of the two bodies does not respond to the request for immunity, Blocher will be denied immunity entirely. Since the legal commission of the Council of States on May 31, 2012 clearly with ten to three votes did not respond to Blocher's request, it can be assumed that the public prosecutor's office can investigate all allegations against Blocher. On June 7, 2012, the National Council's Immunity Commission upheld its view of April 25, 2012. Blocher interprets the parliamentary law differently than the previous reading, he assumes with the decision of the immunity commission of the national council the case is completely closed and the request of the public prosecutor to investigate against him has been "definitely rejected". The legal commission of the Council of States should “no longer decide”. On June 11, 2012, the legal commission of the Council of States met and decided, as on May 31, 2012, that Blocher has no immunity. The commissions of both councils did not follow Blocher's interpretation of the law. The decision on immunity cannot be challenged.

Reports against Hildebrand and his wife were filed with the public prosecutor's office for violating the insider criminal norm. In September 2013, the relevant procedures were formally resolved with a non-handling order because, according to the wording of Art. 161 StGB , foreign exchange transactions do not fall within the scope of the insider criminal norm.

At the end of 2015, the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Canton of Zurich announced that the Blocher investigation could not prove any criminal acts in connection with the transfer of bank details of the former National Bank President Hildebrand. Subsequent forwarding of documents to the Federal Council did not represent any assistance in breaching banking secrecy, because Blocher had no influence on Reto T.'s decision to disclose confidential bank data. The proceedings against Christoph Blocher were discontinued.

On August 23, 2017, the higher court acquitted Hermann Lei on one of the two counts, reduced the sentence to a third of the lower court decision and awarded him compensation. The bank employee was also partially acquitted, but his sentence was increased. Going to the media was justified because, in view of the National Bank President's foreign exchange transactions, there was at least the suspicion that Philipp Hildebrand had acted “highly morally reprehensible” and thus “scandalous” behavior.

documentation

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NZZ Online. : The link between Sarasin and Blocher.
  2. ↑ a b Data thief was betrayed to the media. ( Memento from January 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ a b "I sent Blocher Hildebrand's account documents". ( Memento from January 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Blick . from January 9, 2012.
  4. ↑ Aargauer Zeitung: "Weltwoche" checks the allegation - but does not withdraw it for the time being
  5. ↑ a b National Bank sets a minimum exchange rate of 1.20 francs per euro. Press release of the Swiss National Bank of September 6, 2011 (PDF file; 57 kB)
  6. ↑ SNB President Hildebrand comments on the measures taken by the National Bank. ( Memento from July 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Video in: Swiss television from September 6, 2011.
  7. ↑ Violation of bank client confidentiality by an employee of Bank Sarasin ( Memento from August 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Press release from January 3, 2012 (PDF file; 40 kB)
  8. ↑ NZZ Online. : Bank Sarasin also files criminal charges against third parties. Private bank is examining claims for damages against “Weltwoche”. January 6, 2012.
  9. ↑ Passing on of confidential bank data: expansion of criminal proceedings. Media release in: Public Prosecutor of the Canton of Zurich from January 13, 2012.
  10. ↑ Hildebrand affair: House search at Hermann Lei. In: Schweizer Fernsehen from January 13, 2012.
  11. ↑ SNB President: A measure can be very costly. Video in: Schweizer Fernsehen from September 6, 2011
  12. ↑ Aargauer Zeitung : This is how Christoph Blocher came across Hildebrand's account details on January 7, 2012.
  13. ↑ SNB publishes internal regulations on proprietary transactions and PWC's audit report. Press release of January 4, 2012 (PDF file; 4.5 MB)
  14. ^ Financial transactions of the Hildebrand family and events of the last few days. Media conference of the President of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, Philipp Hildebrand on January 5, 2012 (PDF file; 88 kB)
  15. ↑ Hildebrand defends himself ( Memento from May 19, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) Video in: 10vor10 , Swiss television from January 5, 2012 (9 minutes)
  16. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung : "I hold on to the term liar" , January 7, 2012.
  17. ↑ National Bank President Philipp Hildebrand resigns from office with immediate effect. (PDF; 52 kB) Swiss National Bank, accessed on January 9, 2011 .
  18. ^ Statement by Philipp M. Hildebrand, President of the Board of Directors of the Swiss National Bank, on his resignation. January 9, 2012 (PDF file; 1.6 MB)
  19. ↑ New bank documents encumber Philipp Hildebrand. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. from January 10, 2012.
  20. ↑ Hildebrand stumbled upon this e-mail. In: 20 minutes . from January 9, 2012.
  21. ↑ Marcel Gyr: The winding path of a disastrous email. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. dated March 14, 2012.
  22. ↑ The thinker from the second row ( Memento from January 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), website of the Financial Times Deutschland , January 9, 2012, accessed on January 12, 2012.
  23. ↑ Marcel Gyr: No delicate financial transactions. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. dated March 8, 2012.
  24. ↑ Financial transactions by the National Bank Governing Board: KPMG submits an audit report. In: Swiss National Bank of March 7, 2012 (PDF file; 97 kB) ( archive version) ( Memento of April 16, 2012 on WebCite )
  25. ↑ Accounts of Kashya Hildebrand under the microscope. In: NZZ Online. from March 15, 2012.
  26. ↑ Kashya Hildebrand did not break any rules. In: NZZ Online. from April 25, 2012.
  27. ↑ Financial transactions Kashya Hildebrand: Review result is available. Media release of April 25, 2012 (PDF file; 8.1 MB)
  28. ↑ President of the Bank Council, Raggenbass, is no longer running. In: NZZ Online. dated February 17, 2012.
  29. ↑ Bank Council of the National Bank: All work on track - Dr. Hansueli Raggenbass is no longer running for the Presidency of the Bank Council. In: Swiss National Bank of February 17, 2012 (PDF file; 63 kB)
  30. ↑ National Bank tightens investment rules for directors. In: NZZ Online. from March 13, 2012.
  31. ↑ The National Bank's board of directors adopts new regulations for proprietary transactions by members of the bank management. In: Swiss National Bank of March 12, 2012 (PDF file; 792 kB)
  32. ↑ Marcel Gyr: Blocher questioned by the public prosecutor. In: NZZ Online. from January 13, 2012.
  33. ^ Criminal proceedings extended to National Councilor Christoph Blocher. Media release in: Zurich Public Prosecutor of March 20, 2012.
  34. ^ Hildebrand affair grips SVP politician Blocher. FAZ Online, March 21, 2012.
  35. ↑ Christian Brönnimann, Iwan Städler: Christoph Blocher insists on his immunity, but it's no longer that simple . In: Tages-Anzeiger . from March 22, 2012.
  36. ^ Criminal lawyer : "Blocher's immunity is a borderline case". In: Schweizer Fernsehen, 10vor10 of March 21, 2012.
  37. ↑ Jositsch: "Blocher has no immunity". In: Schweizer Fernsehen from March 24, 2012.
  38. ↑ Peter Hossli: Mr. Blocher, so much for your immunity. In: SonntagsBlick from March 25, 2012.
  39. ↑ 12.190 Immunity of National Councilor Christoph Blocher. Request for annulment. Information to the councils in accordance with Article 17a paragraph 6 Parliament Act (ParlG; SR 171.10) In: parlament.ch of April 25, 2012 (PDF file; 19 kB)
  40. ↑ Stefan Schürer: Blocher acted two days too early. In: Tages-Anzeiger. from 25./26. April 2012.
  41. ↑ Stefan Schürer, Iwan Städler: The public prosecutor's office can investigate all allegations against Blocher. In: Tages-Anzeiger from May 31, 2012.
  42. ↑ Stefan Schürer: Blocher should have informed the supervisory authority. In: Tages-Anzeiger. dated May 31, 2012.
  43. ↑ Clear the way for criminal proceedings. ( Memento from October 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Video in: 10vor10 from May 31, 2012 (4 minutes)
  44. ↑ Dissent on Blocher's immunity. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. from June 1, 2012, p. 12
  45. ↑ National Council Commission upholds Blocher's partial immunity. In: Schweizer Fernsehen from June 7, 2012.
  46. ↑ Patrick Feuz: How Blocher wants to save his immunity. In: Tages-Anzeiger. dated June 9, 2012.
  47. ↑ Why the decision of the National Council Immunity Commission is final. ( Memento of March 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Letter from Christoph Blocher to the Legal Commission of the Council of States of June 8, 2012.
  48. ↑ Markus Brotschi: Blocher demands the annulment of the criminal proceedings. ( Memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Tages-Anzeiger. from 11./12. June 2012.
  49. ^ First proceedings in connection with the Hildebrand affair completed. Media release by the Zurich Public Prosecutor's Office of October 1, 2013.
  50. ↑ 'Hildebrand case' criminal proceedings against Christoph Blocher suspended ' In: NZZ of December 10, 2015
  51. ↑ https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/standard/zuercher-obergericht-verendungt-svppolitiker/story/20269212
  52. ↑ https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/affaere-hildebrand-zuercher-obergericht-veretzungt-svp-politiker-hermann-lei-ld.1312194