Tag: Swiss

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Politics

Swiss Billionaire Quietly Turns into Influential Pressure Amongst Democrats

Swiss Billionaire Quietly Becomes Influential Force Among Democrats

These types of spending – which are usually handled through nonprofit groups that don’t need to disclose much information about their finances, including their donors – have been welcomed by conservatives after regulatory changes and court rulings, particularly those of the Supreme Court, eased campaign spending restrictions were made in 2010 in the Citizens United case.

While progressives and election guards denounced the developments as too powerful for wealthy interests, democratic donors and activists increasingly used dark money. During the 2020 election cycle, Democratic-affiliated groups spent more than $ 514 million on such funds, compared to approximately $ 200 million spent by Republican-affiliated groups, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Some of the groups funded by the Mr. Wyss Foundations played a key role in this shift, although the relatively limited disclosure requirements for these types of groups make it impossible to definitively determine how they spent funds from the Wyss Foundations.

Mr. Wyss and his advisors have developed a “strategic, evidence-based, metric-driven and results-oriented approach to building a political infrastructure,” said Rob Stein, a democratic strategist.

Mr. Stein, who founded the influential Democracy Alliance Club of Big Liberal Donors in 2005 and recruited Mr. Wyss to join, added that “unlike most affluent political donors right and left,” Mr. Wyss and his team “know how is going to achieve measurable, sustainable effects. “

85-year-old Wyss was born in Bern, visited the USA for the first time in 1958 as an exchange student and was enthusiastic about the American national parks and public areas. After getting rich and running the Swiss-based medical device manufacturer Synthes, he began donating his fortune through a network of foundations to promote nature conservation, environmental protection and other issues.

The foundations gradually increased their donations for other Democrat-backed causes, including abortion rights and minimum wage increases, and eventually for groups more directly involved in partisan debates, especially after the election of Mr Trump.

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Politics

Justice Dept. Requested to Study Whether or not Swiss Financial institution Stored Serving to Tax Dodgers

Justice Dept. Asked to Examine Whether Swiss Bank Kept Helping Tax Dodgers

WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday asked Attorney General Merrick B. Garland for information on whether Credit Suisse continues to help rich Americans defraud the IRS, even after signing a settlement agreement with the Justice Department promising to to finish the practice.

It’s about a retired professor named Dan Horsky, who Credit Suisse helped avoid tax payments on assets of $ 200 million. In the summer of 2014, a whistleblower drew the attention of the federal prosecutor’s office to Mr. Horsky’s account and clearly violated the provisions of the settlement agreement that Credit Suisse had agreed a few weeks earlier.

However, the Justice Department under the Obama and Trump administrations never punished Credit Suisse for violating the agreement, despite the whistleblower’s information leading to Mr Horsky pleading guilty of tax evasion in 2016.

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asked Mr. Garland for more information about the Horsky account and anything else that could reveal whether Credit Suisse executives have made false statements to Congress, the Department of Justice, and the courts when it said it vowed to work with the US government’s efforts to force the richest Americans to pay their taxes.

The review of Credit Suisse’s private wealth management practices comes at a sensitive time for the bank. Significant losses were reported last week on loans to a collapsed investment firm and the Swiss financial regulator said it was investigating the bank’s risk management practices. Regulators are also investigating a spying scandal and sales of billions of dollars worth of investments reminiscent of the bad subprime mortgage bonds that led to the 2008 global financial crisis.

“Public reports and documents from the federal court raise important questions as to whether Credit Suisse has complied with its declaration of consent in full,” wrote Wyden in a letter to Garland.

“The plea agreement expressly depends on Credit Suisse fulfilling all essential obligations,” added Wyden. it “stipulates that the agreement not to initiate further prosecution will be void if Credit Suisse fails to fully comply with its obligations.”

Should prosecutors decide that Credit Suisse is in breach of its agreement with the Justice Department, the bank could face legal liability and higher fines.

Mr. Wyden requested the Justice Department to report the Horsky case by May 11th.

A spokesman said the Justice Department received the letter but had no immediate comment. A Credit Suisse spokeswoman said the company “has been and will continue to have fully cooperated with the US authorities since the 2014 settlement.”

Wyden also asked the department to help determine whether Credit Suisse executives had made false statements to the Senate in February 2014 when they testified whether the bank had stopped helping wealthy Americans evade taxes.

Brady Dougan, then managing director of Credit Suisse, told the senators that the bank had strived to “meet 100 percent of the US taxpayer’s requirements,” wrote Wyden. At the same hearing, the bank’s general counsel, Romeo Cerutti, testified that Credit Suisse is “really looking into whether someone is a US person” in an attempt to eradicate Americans who were hiding their assets from the IRS

For nearly 15 years, Republicans and Democrats have been participating in a well-known campaign to weed out tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts, with a focus on UBS and Credit Suisse, both of which are headquartered in Zurich.

When Credit Suisse executives testified in 2014, they were in the midst of negotiations with the Justice Department about an agreement on the bank’s treatment of US tax dodgers.

The two sides signed the deal in May 2014, in which Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to assisting some American clients with tax evasion and fined a total of $ 2.6 billion. But even higher fines were avoided because federal prosecutors swore they had abandoned the practice of “closing down all accounts of recalcitrant account holders” and helping the US with other criminal investigations.

The confession of guilt and the heavy fine were rare in 2014, and it was the first time in more than 20 years that a lender of his size had admitted wrongdoing in an American court.

But a whistleblower surfaced in July of that year telling Justice Department tax officials and federal attorneys who worked on the case about an account owned by Mr. Horsky, a retired economics professor who lived in Rochester. NY and amassed much of his fortune by investing in start-ups in the 1990s.

In September 2014, when Credit Suisse appeared in court to plead guilty, the judge asked both the bank and prosecutors if they had any information that would affect the settlement agreement. Both sides said no.

But the whistleblower spike let prosecutors find out that with the help of Credit Suisse bankers using offshore shell companies, Mr. Horsky had hidden a fortune of $ 200 million, court documents show. The deal lasted months after the bank signed its pleading agreement.

As part of the scheme to hide Mr. Horsky’s assets, it was placed by bankers in the name of a relative of Mr. Horsky who lived abroad. When an account of this size changes hands, it is subject to advanced due diligence, including notifying bank managers of the change.

Mr Wyden also sent a letter to Credit Suisse Tuesday asking for information on when the Justice Department told Credit Suisse about the Horsky account. He asked if the bank had informed the government of the account before reporting the whistleblower, and if not, whether it was due to poor internal controls or a deliberate decision not to report the existence of these accounts to US government agencies. ”

It is unclear why the Justice Department failed to inform the court of the whistleblower claim and change the terms of its settlement. The department would have had the authority to review the Credit Suisse case for possible violations and to pursue the bank.

Jack Ewing contributed to the coverage.

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Business

Swiss Billionaire Is Mentioned to Finish His Bid for Tribune Publishing

Swiss Billionaire Is Said to End His Bid for Tribune Publishing

Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who seemed to have come out of nowhere last month to make a serious offer to Tribune Publishing, a large newspaper chain, has decided to withdraw from the offer, according to three knowledgeable people.

Two of the respondents said the decision was made in the past few days after Mr. Wyss’s staff reviewed the Tribune’s finances as part of a due diligence process.

The two people added that Mr Wyss had come to believe that it would be difficult for him to realize his ambition to turn The Chicago Tribune – the company’s flagship and the one he was most interested in – into a national one To convert publication. The three knowledgeable people spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly.

Mr. Wyss, who had made his fortune as a medical device maker, had joined Maryland hotel manager Stewart Bainum Jr. to prevent Tribune from wholly owned by its largest shareholder, New York, hedge fund Alden Global Capital .

Recognition…The Wyss Foundation and Oceana

At the end of March, Mr. Wyss and Mr. Bainum had put together an offer of $ 18.50 per share that valued the chain at $ 680 million. It took Tribune more than a month to reach a non-binding agreement to sell to Alden for $ 17.25 a share. On April 5, Tribune Publishing announced that its select committee had determined that Mr Wyss and Mr Bainum’s offer would reasonably result in a “superior proposal” compared to Alden’s offer.

As Alden is known for reducing the costs of the 60 or so daily newspapers it controls through its subsidiary MediaNews Group, journalists from Tribune Publications welcomed the surprising entry of Mr Wyss and Mr Bainum into the tender.

Mr. Wyss and Mr. Bainum declined to comment. The Tribune’s special committee also declined to comment.

Mr. Bainum, who had shown a particular interest in another Tribune newspaper, The Baltimore Sun, remains committed to pursuing ownership of Tribune Publishing. With Mr. Wyss no longer at his side, he is looking for new financing, said the three people. Mr Bainum told the Tribune’s Special Committee that Mr Wyss left on Friday, two respondents said, confirming his resignation from the deal in writing on Saturday.

Born in Bern, Switzerland and with a home in Wyoming, Mr. Wyss first visited the United States as an exchange student in 1958 and worked as a journalist as a young man. A decade ago, as managing director of the Swiss-based medical device manufacturer Synthes, he oversaw the sale to Johnson & Johnson for around 20 billion US dollars.

Categories
Business

Swiss Billionaire Joins the Bidding for Tribune Publishing

Swiss Billionaire Joins the Bidding for Tribune Publishing

An eighty-year-old Swiss billionaire who has his home in Wyoming and donated hundreds of millions to environmental causes is a surprising new entrant in the bid for Tribune Publishing, the big newspaper chain that until recently appeared to have fallen into the hands of a New York City Hedge fund.

Hansjörg Wyss (pronounced Hans-yorg Vees), the former managing director of the medical device manufacturer Synthes, said in an interview on Friday that he had agreed to apply for Tribune Publishing with Maryland hotelier Stewart W. Bainum Jr. An offer that could turn Alden Global Capital’s plan to completely take over the company on its head.

Mr Wyss, who gave away some of his fortune for wildlife habitat conservation in Wyoming, Montana and Maine, said he was motivated to join the Tribune’s offer because he believed in the need for a robust press. “I have the opportunity to do 500 times more than I do now,” he said.

Alden, which already owns around 32 percent of Tribune Publishing shares, is known for drastically cutting the cost of the newspapers it controls through its MediaNews Group subsidiary. Last month, the hedge fund reached an agreement with Tribune, whose newspapers include The Daily News, The Baltimore Sun, and The Chicago Tribune, to buy the remainder of the company’s stock for $ 17.25 apiece.

As part of that plan, Mr. Bainum, a lifelong Marylander, agreed to start a nonprofit group that would buy The Sun and two other Maryland newspapers owned by Tribune von Alden for $ 65 million. However, soon after this settlement, negotiations between Mr Bainum and Alden came to a standstill. This prompted Mr. Bainum, chairman of Choice Hotels International, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, to make an offer for the entire Tribune on March 16, beating Alden’s number with an offer of $ 18.50 per share.

The company valued this offer at around $ 650 million. The Alden Accords valued Tribune at around $ 630 million.

Tribune was not influenced by Mr. Bainum’s offer. A securities notification filed on Tuesday revealed that the company’s board of directors had recommended shareholders approve Alden’s offer. At the same time, the Tribune Board gave Mr. Bainum permission to continue funding his higher bid.

He’s done just that by teaming up with Mr. Wyss, who said in the interview that he plans to own the company’s flagship while he and Mr. Bainum are benefactors for the Tribune’s seven other subway dailies search, including The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.

“He made this bid because he wanted The Baltimore Sun,” said Mr. Wyss, referring to Mr. Bainum. “I said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine. And I have to do The Tribune even better than I do now. ‘“

The agreement between Mr. Wyss and Mr. Bainum is non-binding, said Mr. Wyss. He added that it had come together in the past few days and was detailed in a letter he sent to Mr Bainum on Friday. A person aware of the discussions between Mr. Wyss and Mr. Bainum confirmed that each man planned to allocate $ 100 million for the $ 650 million offering, and Mr. Wyss said he was ready to provide additional funding for the debt financing.

Mr Bainum declined to comment. A spokesman for three members of the Tribune’s board of directors not affiliated with Alden declined to comment. An Alden spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A decade ago, Mr. Wyss led the sale of Synthes to Johnson & Johnson for approximately $ 20 billion. Mr. Wyss and his family – a daughter, Amy, also lives in Wyoming – had the largest interest in Synthes and owned nearly half the shares.

The Tribune sale, which the newspaper company plans to complete by July, requires regulatory approval and the approval of the company’s shareholders, who represent two-thirds of the non-Alden stock. Medical entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the Los Angeles Times with his wife Michele B. Chan, has enough Tribune stock to smash the Alden deal himself. Dr. Soon-Shiong declined to comment on Saturday.

Mr. Wyss said he would be a civil administrator of the Chicago Tribune. “I don’t want to see any other newspaper that has a chance to increase the amount of truth that is being told to the American people who are going down the drain,” he said.

Alden’s potential takeover of Tribune was vehemently rejected by many journalists in Tribune newspapers. Alden has aggressively cut costs on many of the MediaNews Group’s publications, including The Denver Post and The San Jose Mercury News. Critics say the hedge fund is sacrificing journalistic quality for higher profits, while Alden argues that it is saving paper that would otherwise join the thousands who went out of business over the past two decades.

Wyss, 85, said he was inspired in part by an opinion piece in the New York Times last year on Mr. Bainum in which two Chicago Tribune reporters, David Jackson and Gary Marx, warned against buying Alden too a “ghost version” of The Chicago Tribune – a newspaper that can no longer fulfill its essential watchdog mission. “Both reporters have left the paper since this article was published.

Born in Bern, Wyss first visited the United States in 1958 as an exchange student and worked for the Colorado Highway Department. As a young man he was a journalist, he said and reported on skiing for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a Zürcher Zeitung and submitting programs on American sports to Der Bund, a Bernese newspaper, when he was studying at Harvard Business School.

He said he believed the Chicago Tribune would thrive under his estate.

“Maybe I’m naive,” said Wyss, “but the combination of giving a professional staff enough money to do the right things and putting some money into the digital world makes it a very profitable newspaper after all.”