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UBS AG


Self Description

June 2002: "UBS is one of the world's leading financial firms, serving a discerning global client base. As an organization, we combine financial strength with a reputation for innovation and a global culture which embraces change." With head offices in Zurich and Basel, we operate in over 50 countries and from all major international financial centers. http://www.ubs.com/e/index/about/our_profile/ourprofile.html

Third-Party Descriptions

February 2013: "Mr. Breuer won perhaps his biggest victory when a Japanese subsidiary of UBS pleaded guilty to manipulating the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. It was the first unit of a big global bank to plead guilty in two decades."

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/breuer-reflects-on-prosecutions-that-were-and-werent

July 2012: 'He shows that at least £13tn – perhaps up to £20tn – has leaked out of scores of countries into secretive jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands with the help of private banks, which vie to attract the assets of so-called high net-worth individuals. Their wealth is, as Henry puts it, "protected by a highly paid, industrious bevy of professional enablers in the private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries taking advantage of the increasingly borderless, frictionless global economy". According to Henry's research, the top 10 private banks, which include UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, as well as the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, managed more than £4tn in 2010, a sharp rise from £1.5tn five years earlier.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/global-elite-tax-offshore-economy

September 2011: "The filing did not cite a figure for the total losses the government wanted to recover, but in a similar case brought in July against UBS, the F.H.F.A. is trying to recover $900 million in losses on $4.5 billion in securities. A similar 20 percent claim against Bank of America could equal a $10 billion hit."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/business/bank-suits-over-mortgages-are-filed.html

December 2010: "None of the three clearinghouses would divulge the members of their risk committees when asked by a reporter. But two people with direct knowledge of ICE’s committee said the bank members are: Thomas J. Benison of JPMorgan Chase & Company; James J. Hill of Morgan Stanley; Athanassios Diplas of Deutsche Bank; Paul Hamill of UBS; Paul Mitrokostas of Barclays; Andy Hubbard of Credit Suisse; Oliver Frankel of Goldman Sachs; Ali Balali of Bank of America; and Biswarup Chatterjee of Citigroup."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12advantage.html

May 2010: The New York attorney general has started an investigation of eight banks to determine whether they provided misleading information to rating agencies in order to inflate the grades of certain mortgage securities, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/business/13street.html

July 2009: "Switzerland and the United States reached an agreement in principle on Friday to settle out of court a case that sought to force the Swiss banking giant UBS to turn over the names of wealthy American clients suspected of tax evasion, a lawyer for the government said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/01/business/01ubs.html

July 2009: "The former UBS executive told Mr. Chernick that because the smaller private bank had not entered into a special program with the Internal Revenue Service known as Qualified Intermediary it would not be subject to the same scrutiny by United States tax officials as UBS."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/global/29ubs.html

July 2009: "When the Swiss bank UBS and federal prosecutors face off in a Florida courtroom on Monday, the focus will be whether UBS must disclose the identities of thousands of its American clients, but much more could be at stake as well."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/business/global/10ubs.html

December 2008: "The highest-ranking executives at four firms have agreed under pressure to go without their bonuses, including John A. Thain, who initially wanted a bonus this year since he joined Merrill Lynch as chief executive after its ill-fated mortgage bets were made. And four former executives at one hard-hit bank, UBS of Switzerland, recently volunteered to return some of the bonuses they were paid before the financial crisis. But few think others on Wall Street will follow that lead."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/18pay.html

December 2008: 'But it was Morgan Stanley’s claw-back announcement, which will affect some 7,000 workers, that captured the attention of employment lawyers and recruiters. It is similar to a rule introduced by UBS, the big Swiss bank, in late November, but Morgan’s is far broader in its language. Pay can be retracted from workers who engage in “conduct detrimental to the firm,” according to an internal memorandum announcing the move, or who cause “a restatement of results, a significant financial loss or other reputational harm.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09pay.html

July 2008: "The secrecy surrounding offshore bank accounts was pierced Wednesday by a Senate report that examined how UBS, the big Swiss bank, and LGT, which is run by the royal family of Liechtenstein, helped wealthy individuals evade American taxes. The 115-page report, prepared by Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, laid out how eight individuals used offshore accounts to dodge taxes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/washington/17tax.html

July 2008: "The little-noticed program has come under greater scrutiny amid a widening investigation into whether UBS, the world’s largest private bank, misused the program to help American clients evade federal income taxes through secret offshore entities."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/business/15tax.html

May 2008: "A top-ranking UBS executive was briefly detained by federal authorities in the United States in connection with a widening investigation into the Swiss bank’s work with questionable tax transactions, the bank said Wednesday."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/business/worldbusiness/07bank-web.html

April 2008: "The Swiss banking giant UBS, which has written off more debt from the subprime crisis than any other bank, conceded in a report on Monday that a blind drive for revenue led it to take more risks than it should have."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/business/worldbusiness/22ubs.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Status/Name Change from Paine Webber Organization May 1, 2007
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) UBS Warburg Organization Aug 10, 2006

Articles and Resources

24 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 4]

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Feb 28, 2013 Breuer Reflects on Prosecutions That Were, and Weren’t

QUOTE: The 54-year-old prosecutor, with a Rolodex as thick as his Queens dialect, will leave the Justice Department on Friday, emboldened after mounting recent cases against banking giants. But Mr. Breuer, the department’s criminal division chief, also leaves somewhat bruised, having taken criticism for not throwing Wall Street executives behind bars after the financial crisis.

 New York Times
Jul 21, 2012 £13tn: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite • Study estimates staggering size of offshore economy • Private banks help wealthiest to move cash into havens

QUOTE: "The problem here is that the assets of these countries are held by a small number of wealthy individuals while the debts are shouldered by the ordinary people of these countries through their governments," the report says

 Guardian Unlimited
Sep 02, 2011 Federal Regulators Sue Big Banks Over Mortgages

QUOTE: A bruising legal fight pitting the country’s most powerful banks against the full force of the United States government began Friday, as federal regulators filed suits against 17 financial institutions that sold the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nearly $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities that later soured.

 New York Times
Dec 11, 2010 A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives

QUOTE: Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk. In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.

 New York Times
Nov 16, 2009 Audit Faults New York Fed in A.I.G. Bailout

QUOTE: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York gave up much of its power in high-pressure negotiations with the American International Group’s trading partners last year...

 New York Times
Nov 16, 2009 Taint of Corruption Is No Barrier to U.S. Visa

QUOTE: former and current State Department officials said Equatorial Guinea’s close ties to the American oil industry were the reason for the lax enforcement of the law [baring official Teodoro Nguema Obiang from entering the U.S,. to his mansion].

 New York Times
Aug 19, 2009 UBS deal cracks door on banking secrecy worldwide (Rebuilding the Economy)

QUOTE: The amount of global wealth stashed in tax-haven nations is staggering and largely uncontrolled, financial experts say.

 Christian Science Monitor
Jul 31, 2009 Settlement Reached in UBS Tax Case

QUOTE: UBS and the Swiss government have been battling efforts by the Justice Department to force it to disclose the names of 52,000 wealthy American UBS clients suspected of offshore tax evasion. The efforts have threatened to peel back layers of Swiss banking secrecy, and have unsettled UBS, the world’s largest private bank and a pillar of the Swiss economy.

 New York Times
Jul 28, 2009 Swiss Bank Inquiry Widens as UBS Client Pleads Guilty

QUOTE: Federal prosecutors have widened their investigation into Swiss banks suspected of selling offshore tax evasion services to wealthy Americans to include a small private bank based in Zurich, according to court documents filed on Tuesday. The former UBS executive told Mr. Chernick that because the smaller private bank had not entered into a special program with the Internal Revenue Service known as Qualified Intermediary it would not be subject to the same scrutiny by United States tax officials as UBS.

 New York Times
Jul 09, 2009 UBS Digs in Its Heels on Clients’ Names

QUOTE: The dispute, in which the Internal Revenue Service, backed by the Justice Department, is trying to force UBS to hand over the names of 52,000 wealthy American clients suspected of tax evasion, has escalated into a showdown that has frayed relations between Switzerland and the United States, peeled back layers of Swiss banking secrecy and rattled the world’s private banking industry....the chief executive of UBS, sent a memorandum to the bank’s top executives on Thursday saying that turning over the names “would require UBS to violate Swiss criminal law, and we simply cannot comply"

 New York Times
Jul 08, 2009 Treaty Conveys Little Power to Break Swiss Bank Secrecy

QUOTE: A new treaty touted as helping U.S. law enforcement crack Swiss bank secrecy may do little to help authorities achieve a prime objective: exposing tax evaders.

 Washington Post
Dec 18, 2008 On Wall Street, Bonuses, Not Profits, Were Real

QUOTE: Merrill’s record earnings in 2006 — $7.5 billion — turned out to be a mirage. The company has since lost three times that amount, largely because the mortgage investments that supposedly had powered some of those profits plunged in value. Unlike the earnings, however, the bonuses have not been reversed.

 New York Times
Dec 09, 2008 Bonus Season Afoot, Wall Street Tries for a Little Restraint

QUOTE: With Wall Street pay under scrutiny as never before, Morgan Stanley is attaching a string to its annual bonuses....Pay can be retracted from workers who engage in “conduct detrimental to the firm,” according to an internal memorandum announcing the move, or who cause “a restatement of results, a significant financial loss or other reputational harm.”

 New York Times
Jul 17, 2008 Senate Report Examines Role of Banks in Tax Evasion

QUOTE: The secrecy surrounding offshore bank accounts was pierced Wednesday by a Senate report that examined how UBS, the big Swiss bank, and LGT, which is run by the royal family of Liechtenstein, helped wealthy individuals evade American taxes. The 115-page report, prepared by Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, laid out how eight individuals used offshore accounts to dodge taxes.

 New York Times
Jul 15, 2008 I.R.S. Aims to Give Teeth to a Program Meant to Counter Offshore Tax Avoidance

QUOTE: The Internal Revenue Service plans to tighten the rules for a multibillion-dollar program created to make sure offshore bank customers pay their United States taxes, top tax officials say. The little-noticed program has come under greater scrutiny amid a widening investigation into whether UBS, the world’s largest private bank, misused the program to help American clients evade federal income taxes through secret offshore entities.

 New York Times
May 07, 2008 UBS Banker Detained in Tax Inquiry

QUOTE: A top-ranking UBS executive was briefly detained by federal authorities in the United States in connection with a widening investigation into the Swiss bank’s work with questionable tax transactions...

 New York Times
Apr 22, 2008 UBS Faults Blind Ambition for Subprime Miscues

QUOTE: The Swiss banking giant UBS, which has written off more debt from the subprime crisis than any other bank, conceded in a report on Monday that a blind drive for revenue led it to take more risks than it should have.

 New York Times
Jan 22, 2008 If Everyone’s Finger-Pointing, Who’s to Blame?

QUOTE: Two questions lie at the heart of many...[recent mortgage market] cases. The first is whether lenders and investment banks alerted borrowers and investors to the risks posed by subprime loans or securities backed by them. The second is how much they were legally obliged to disclose.

 New York Times
Mar 02, 2007 SEC Files Charges in Wall Street Insider Trading Scheme: Plots Touch 4 Elite Wall Street Firms

QUOTE: Federal prosecutors unsealed criminal charges against more than a dozen people, including former executives at four of Wall Street's elite institutions, accused of engaging in thousands of improper trades in two schemes that netted more than $15 million in profit.

 Washington Post
Nov 27, 2006 Guaranteed to Go Up: When you hear about a portfolio that goes up along with the stock market but can't go down, your first question should be: Where's the catch?

QUOTE: How about a note that pays a return pegged to Standard & Poor's 500 Index but guarantees your original investment back no matter what? Or, better yet, one that pays double or triple the index?....In mathematically complicated ways, market interest rates are built into the pricing of derivatives like puts and calls, and with higher rates the terms of a structured note can be made more appealing to the naive investor.

 Forbes

24 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 4]