Plans to tighten regulations on the commodities sector remain controversial
Keystone
The non-governmental Berne Declaration group has called for the creation of an independent supervisory authority to oversee the Swiss commodities market. It says it is not good enough to allow the sector to regulate itself.
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Urs Geiser, swissinfo.ch
At the launch of its latest campaign to fight ongoing corruption, inequality and environmental issues in the worldwide commodities sector, the pressure group said an independent regulator would help counter the “resource curse”.
“Switzerland as the world’s most important commodities hub has a political responsibility to act,” Andreas Missbach told a news conference on Monday.
He said 500 million people living in extractive countries rich in commodities could escape poverty if they could be included in the economic benefits.
The proposed body External linkwould regulate the sector with a mixture of due diligence and transparency requirements, including human rights, licences and fair tax practices.
The group reiterated that the world commodities market represents a high reputational risk for Switzerland, the hub for at least 20% of the world’s commodities trading.
In March 2013, the Swiss government published a controversial report on the commodities market. It recognised the importance and risks, but stopped short of drafting separate legislation for the sector.
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Cabinet refuses to legislate on commodity sector
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“It is important to ensure that the framework in Switzerland is not less attractive than elsewhere,” Economics Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann told a news conference following Wednesday’s cabinet meeting. “Switzerland prefers voluntary standards which are supported and upheld by businesses. Our experience with such an approach in the past has been positive,” he added. Switzerland is…
Instead, the cabinet proposed tightening existing laws, notably on money laundering and shareholder rights. A bill is expected to be submitted to parliament by the end of this year.
Several commodity firms and associations have rejected that proposal, according to the Tages-Anzeiger and Der Bund newspapers.
There are more than 500 commodity trading companies based in Switzerland with about 10,000 employees, notably in Geneva, Zug and Lugano. They include GlencoreXstrata, Trafigura and Vitol, companies with the highest turnover in Switzerland.
Opponents of stricter regulations are concerned that they could turn their backs on Switzerland and settle elsewhere in the world.
Look alike
The NGO published its plan for a commodities supervisory authority in a sophisticated presentation, including a special website and logo with obvious references to the existing financial regulatory authority, FINMA.
The proposed ROHMA – a German acronym for a market supervisory authority for raw materials – is described as a “comprehensive and detailed visionary example” for a proposed mandate.
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NGOs slam Glencore Xstrata over mining project
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In a report released in Zurich on Wednesday, the NGOs said that the company, based in Zug, was showing “insufficient respect for the rights of the affected population” in its plans for the copper and gold open-pit mine, and called on the Swiss government to take action. The report, Human Rights Impact Assessment of the…
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Even without any workday traffic to stir it up, the red dust stings my eyes. But I’m lucky. I can blink a few times – or drive away – and the problem will disappear. Not so for the people living near Belfast in the north-eastern state of Mpumalanga, about 230 kilometres east of Johannesburg. Maria…
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PR or Progress? Glencore’s Corporate Responsibility in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was published on Tuesday by the Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund and Bread for All in collaboration with the British organisation Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID). The authors said that since 2012 – and particularly since the merger with Xstrata in May…
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In developing countries, raw materials could be mined in such a way that more people would benefit and fewer would suffer, says Swiss-based research platform.
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The initiative, proposed by the youth section of the centre-left Social Democrats, stipulates that the salary of a company’s highest paid employee cannot be more than 12 times that of its lowest paid employee. The initiative is seen as a reaction to widening social inequality, as well as the recent banking scandals and the general feeling that many…
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“I wouldn’t describe it as a defeat at all,” said commodities/human rights specialist Urs Rybi of the Berne Declaration, a Swiss non-governmental organisation that favours more regulation of Switzerland’s fast-growing industry. “It’s just [a] first step of many. If we’d already got concrete, binding regulations as an outcome of this process it would have been…
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But the regulatory respite has been thrown into the shade by continued foreign attacks on banking secrecy and cantonal tax perks. The cosy Swiss conditions enjoyed by traders may be coming to an end, with rival countries queuing up to poach disgruntled firms. Traders have heaped praise on last month’s recommendations of a government…
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In the small village of Hausen am Albis, home to 3,300 people, a shout of joy and loud applause greeted the result of a vote in early December – residents had just accepted an initiative to give part of the tax windfall indirectly generated by Glencore to development aid projects abroad. Hausen am Albis was…
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