guardian.co.uk,
Phillip Inman economics correspondent, Wednesday 4 January 2012
 |
| Philipp Hildebrand, president of the Swiss National Bank faced fresh claims about his personal currency transactions. Photograph Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images |
Switzerland's
central bank was embroiled in an insider trading scandal after bank chief
Philipp Hildebrand was accused of speculating on currency transactions only
weeks before he instituted dramatic policy changes that shifted prices in his
favour.
The
accusations, which have rocked the Swiss banking industry, were made by Swiss
weekly newspaper Die Weltwoche in a statement before its Thursday publication.
It said that previous reports that Hildebrand's wife was responsible for the
foreign exchange transactions were misplaced and it was the bank chief who was
behind the purchase and selling of currency that triggered an investigation by
the Swiss National Bank (SNB).
The bank
chairman also made several other dollar and euro transactions on the foreign
exchange market between March and October last year, according to Die
Weltwoche, which is close to the far-right Swiss People's Party (SVP).
Hildebrand
has come under sustained attack from the SVP and its vice-president Christoph
Blocher following the bank chief's efforts to bring down the value of the Swiss franc against the dollar and the euro.
The SNB
shocked foreign exchange markets last September when it imposed a cap on the
value of the franc against the euro to stop the currency soaring and thereby
hurting Swiss exporters' earnings.
The Swiss
weekly claimed that in March alone, Hildebrand bought US dollars worth SFr1.1m,
saying it had access to extracts from the Hildebrands' banking documents. The
SNB refused to comment.
The bank
that allegedly handled the transactions, Banque Sarasin, said an employee had
leaked client information by transmitting banking details to a lawyer close to
the SVP. It said the member of staff had left the bank and could face
prosecution.
Die Weltwoche
said the same employee had lodged a complaint against Hildebrand for alleged
insider trading. "We have all the bank statements showing the relevant
transactions, plus a verbal assurance from a bank employee confirming that it
was Hildebrand personally – not his wife – who ordered the transactions,"
Die Weltwoche's deputy editor-in-chief, Philipp Gut, told the Associated Press
in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
According
to the newspaper, Hildebrand bought more than $500,000 in two transactions dated
15 August, which he then resold in September – making a profit of SFr75,000
(£52,000).
On 15
August the dollar was worth 0.79 francs, against 0.92 francs on 4 October.
"It's
a classic forex [foreign exchange] speculation," Gut said. "The only
option for Hildebrand is to step down."
The
Zurich-based weekly said it had obtained bank statements showing that he was
the one who had bought large amounts of dollars before selling them at a
profit.
The central
bank said in December that an independent investigation into the Hildebrand
couple's transactions found they complied with previously agreed ethical
standards.
The probe
was reportedly launched after SVP figurehead Christoph Blocher went to then
president Micheline Calmy-Rey with extracts of banking documents.
Blocher, a
billionaire, has so far refused to comment. A critic of SNB policy under
Hildebrand, he is also a defender of Switzerland's banking secrecy laws.
Three weeks
earlier the bank chief's wife, Kashya Hildebrand, who runs an art gallery in
Zurich, said she bought dollars due to the fact that they had "hit a very
low level and become ridiculously cheap".
In a
written statement to SF, the Swiss television network, Hildebrand said she had
always followed the foreign exchange market and had worked in the banking
sector for 15 years between 1984 and 1999 before moving into art.
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