Free Republic

One of the biggest banks in the world wants the president’s favorite banker muzzled. The banker, Robert Wolf, a top UBS executive in New York, is among President Obama’s leading fund-raisers, building more than more than $500,000 for his re-election so far this year. A regular presence at big campaign fund-raisers, Mr. Wolf, who is 50, golfs and vacations with Mr. Obama and is known for e-mailing friends photos of himself with the president. -snip- Mr. Wolf and Mr. Obama met in late 2006 at a reception held at the offices of the billionaire investor George Soros. The two became...

ZURICH – The new chief executive of UBS AG says Switzerland should consider changing its banking secrecy laws so they no longer protect suspected tax evaders, according to an interview published Saturday. Oswald Gruebel told twice-weekly newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft that Switzerland's banking secrecy laws need to be changed in order to ease the political pressure other countries are putting on the small Alpine nation. Germany, Britain and the United States have demanded that Switzerland open itself up to foreign tax investigations. UBS is currently the subject of a major U.S. probe into whether it conspired to defraud the U.S....

Investment banking mogul Edouard Stern was clad head-to-feet in a latex suit when he was found shot dead this week in his Geneva apartment, Swiss media reported yesterday as the mystery of his murder deepened. Stern, 50, was found dead in the bedroom of his securely locked lodgings Tuesday by the wife of his building's superintendent and three colleagues after he had missed several business meetings. An investigating judge is releasing few details about the killing, but confirmed Stern was shot three times. Two bullets struck Stern in the head, said the Tribune de Geneve newspaper. Another Geneva paper, Le...