Tue, Jun 21st 2022
Ukrainians struggle to find work, inside a Swiss capsule hotel, and more in our roundup of Swiss news from June 17 – 21.
Credit Suisse says the employee in question acted alone and that the bank cannot be subject to a lawsuit.
Russian oligarch to sue Credit Suisse
Russian oligarch Vitaly Malkin announced this week that he will sue Credit Suisse for 500 million CHF because a bank employee allegedly caused him to lose millions between 2007 and 2008. The former employee in question, Patrice Lescaudron, worked for Credit Suisse in Geneva handling wealthy clients from Eastern Europe. In 2015 he was fired from the bank and in 2018 he was sentenced five years in prison for fraud and forgery. Lescaudron committed suicide in 2020. Credit Suisse told Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung that it rejects all claims Malkin has made and that the bank has “not been damaging” to Malkin’s fortune. Still, in March a court in Bermuda ruled that Lescaudron contributed to the loss of $553 million and earlier this week a Geneva public prosecutor identified eight shady transactions between 2008 and 2014. The evidence shows that there could be grounds for a legal indictment to be brought against the bank. Read more.
Hiding your money? Don’t use Switzerland
Ukrainians struggle to find work in Switzerland
While more than 57,000 Ukrainian refugees have applied for Switzerland’s special S Permit since March, only 1,500 have been able to find paying jobs, according to a new government report. “Considering that it’s only been three months since the start of the war, that’s encouraging,” said Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter in a press conference earlier this month. Still, there is a demand for skilled workers in Switzerland right now but Swiss employers do not seem to be hiring them. A Jobcloud survey of 2,000 Ukrainian refugees found that 75% had a university degree and 63% spoke English fluently. However, only 10% had a good grasp of German and even fewer could speak French or Italian. Read more.
Is Switzerland treating Ukrainian refugees fairly?
The Green Marmot capsule hotel has “rooms” for less than $50 a night.
The cheapest hotel in the most expensive city
Writing in The Daily Mail this week, a travel writer Carlton Reid recounts what it is like to stay in the least expensive hotel – The Green Marmot capsule hotel – in the most expensive city in Switzerland, Zürich. The capsule hotel is one of only four in Switzerland – a concept that was pioneered in the 1970s in Japan. Although accommodations bring “packaging of sardines” to Reid’s mind, he writes the hotel does have one of the better locations in Zürich’s Old Town. Moreover, the hotel has won awards for design and the nightly fee cannot be beat: 48 CHF. Read more.
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