A Swiss man was handed a suspended prison term of nearly two years and a fine on Thursday for spying on a German tax authority, in a case that has pitted Swiss bank secrecy against Germany’s clampdown on tax evasion.
The man had confessed to the Frankfurt state court that he accepted 28,000 euros ($33,000) from Switzerland’s NDB spy agency to obtain information on tax officials in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Deutsche Börse chief executive Carsten Kengeter will step down days after a German court refused to approve a settlement with prosecutors over allegations of insider trading. The company said in a statement on Thursday that it had accepted Mr Kengeter’s resignation with “regret.” He will leave at the end of the year.
The decision by the Frankfurt court earlier this week was a major blow to Deutsche Börse’s efforts to draw a line under the investigation into Mr Kengeter’s conduct on the eve of failed merger talks with the London Stock Exchange.
An Air Berlin flight was grounded in Reykjavik over the airline’s unpaid airport charges. The Icelandic aviation authority would not allow the plane to take off without paying its bills.
Cash-strapped Air Berlin, one of Germany’s largest airlines, filed for insolvency in August after shareholder Etihad announced it would no longer be providing financial support. A €210 million ($247 million) bid by Lufthansa to buy the airline was accepted last week.
Frankfurt is emerging as the frontrunner in the battle for the post-Brexit spoils, as the German city lures banks and jobs out of London amid uncertainty over divorce talks.
After months of stalled negotiations in Brussels between Britain and the EU left London’s future shakier than ever, a growing number of banks are stepping up their contingency plans by leasing office space in other European cities.
While rival hubs have jostled to attract London’s bankers, Frankfurt – the city known by locals as Mainhattan, indicating its dreams of financial stardom – has established a clear edge over competitors such as Paris, Dublin and Amsterdam.
Experts have made a gloomy prognosis: in 2030, Germany could be missing up to three million skilled workers. And ten years later this figure could rise to 3.3 million, according to a study published on Wednesday.
The study, conducted by swiss research institute Prognos AG on behalf of the Bavarian Industry Association (vbw), predicts Germany will lack millions of skilled workers, technical and medical workers and researchers in the near future.
UBS is mulling over shifting its trading headquarters from London to Frankfurt inside the European Union (EU), post Brexit, as Bloomberg report.
The Swiss firm’s investment bank employs about 4,800 bankers globally and could move 250 or more jobs out of London to Frankfurt and other European locations, two of the people briefed on the deliberations said, asking not to be identified as the talks are private.
Brexit is set to deliver a much-heralded jobs boom with over 80,000 new roles to be created in Frankfurt.
A new report released by lobby group Frankfurt Main Finance found that the expected influx of 10,000 financial services staff over the next four years – fuelled by relocation plans and a banking exodus from London – will result in the creation of up to 87,667 new roles throughout the Rhein-Main-Region.
Amidst almost universal accolades for the Tesla Model S, an environmental minister for the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has done the unthinkable. He has returned the Model S he used for official business, claiming it has several drawbacks that make it unsuitable for everyday driving.
