Credit Suisse rescue package rejected by Swiss parliament
BERN, April 12 (Reuters) - Switzerland's parliament rejected on Wednesday the government's 109 billion Swiss francs ($120.82 billion) aid for Credit Suisse's (CSGN.S) merger with UBS (UBSG.S), leaving the fallen bank's hastily arranged rescue without a largely symbolic parliamentary blessing.
While the upper house had approved the government's contribution to the rescue package, parliament's lower, and larger chamber, pushed back again on Wednesday.
It had already rejected the proposals in a late night session on Tuesday, forcing the upper house to find a solution when it met again on Wednesday.
Seeking a compromise, the upper house passed changes to the measure on Wednesday morning, but it was not enough to sway the lower house lawmakers.
They turned it down by 103 votes to 71 in favour, a similar level of opposition to the night before.
Speaking just before the lower house vote, Cedric Wermuth, the co-president of the Social Democrats said the party just could not support the funding.
While the government's commitment, made using emergency law, cannot be overturned, the vote marks a symbolic rebuke for the authorities, whose decision to largely bypass the nation's legislative has angered many politicians.
"This decision has no impact on the takeover of Credit Suisse decided on March 19," the Swiss Finance Ministry said after the vote.
The support package had already been given binding approval by the parliament's finance delegation, due to the urgency of the matter, it said.
"The funds have already been fully committed," it added.
Lawmakers who backed an approval of the deal, voiced concern about Switzerland's image.
"It doesn't really matter what we decide in detail, but it would really send a bad signal if these loans were rejected," said Eva Herzog, who is a member of the Council of States, the upper house, before the vote.
Following a day of heated debates held in the country's four national languages, that continued into early morning hours, the upper house passed changes aimed at winning over the sceptics.
They included a proposal for Switzerland's federal government to draft an amendment to the country's Banking Act. Its aim would be to reduce the risks posed by systemically relevant banks, such as Credit Suisse and UBS for Switzerland, by, for example, raising capital requirements and restricting bonuses.
Addressing parliament before the vote on Wednesday, finance minister Karin Keller-Sutter told lawmakers to consider what message their rejection of the rescue would send to the world.
"What signal do you want to give internationally, are the institutions reliable, do you value financial market stability in a place where you already have a financial centre with a certain importance?"
Lawmakers were recalled to the country's capital, Bern, for the rare extraordinary session to discuss the Swiss government's open chequebook response to a collapse that many in the country have blamed on Credit Suisse's top management.
Last month's shotgun marriage which saw the bank taken over by rival UBS for 3 billion Swiss francs and propped up with more than 250 billion Swiss francs in guarantees and support has drawn widespread criticism.
The government invoked Swiss emergency law to sign it off to the ire of the almost 250 lawmakers left without a say.
"The use of emergency law has reached a level in the last three years that is beginning to annoy me," Hansjoerg Knecht, a member of Parliament's upper house, said on Tuesday.
($1 = 0.9022 Swiss francs)
Article I, Section 9, Clause 3:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
Y EL COMENTARIO SOBRE EL MISMO:
The Supreme Court has generally rejected ex post facto challenges to laws imposing retroactive tax liability.1 In Kentucky Union Co. v. Kentucky, the Court emphasized that not all retroactive laws are ex post facto, as the prohibition on ex post facto laws applies only to retroactive criminal laws.2 The majority further opined: “Laws of a retroactive nature, imposing taxes or providing remedies for their assessment and collection, and not impairing vested rights, are not forbidden by the Federal Constitution.” 3
The Court has made clear, however, that the question of whether a law is a non-penal tax, and thus outside the scope of the Ex Post Facto Clauses, depends on how the statute functions rather than its formal classification by the legislature. In Burgess v. Salmon, the Court held that the retroactive application of a tax law that was enforceable through a fine and imprisonment was invalid on ex post facto grounds.4 The Court cautioned that “the ex post facto effect of a law cannot be evaded by giving a civil form to that which is essentially criminal.” 5
- Footnotes
- 1
- See, e.g., Carpenter v. Pennsylvania, 58 U.S. 456, 463 (1855) (law retroactively imposing a tax on certain devises in a will was not ex post facto); Bankers Trust Co. v. Blodgett, 260 U.S. 647, 652 (1923)
(upholding a state statute retroactively imposing an estate tax and
imposing a two percent penalty for non-payment, holding that the penalty
“was not in punishment of a crime, and it is only to such that the
constitutional prohibition applies” ). In Locke v. City of New Orleans, the Supreme Court denied an ex post facto challenge to a tax law, holding both that the law was not retroactive and that the Ex Post Facto Clause did not apply to the non-penal tax at issue. 71 U.S. 172, 173 (1866).
- 2
- 219 U.S. 140, 152 (1911).
- 3
- Id. at 152–53.
- 4
- 97 U.S. 381, 381, 385 (1878).
- 5
- Id.
@WallStreetSilv
— Guillermo Ruiz Zapatero (@ruiz_zapatero) July 17, 2023
Why #CreditSuissefiles must be secret any time?
Are public expenses secret at all?
I mean from the constitutional point of viewhttps://t.co/UZ6DWCuZHb https://t.co/idbKSb9wBq
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