Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
I shouldn't be shocked. But seriously, is this Philipp Hildebrand stuff for real? I had to read this little snippet out of The Economist twice:
The Swiss National Bank published its internal regulations on staff transactions to try to dampen allegations swirling in the Swiss media that Philipp Hildebrand, the central bank's president, and his wife acted wrongly by buying dollars prior to the SNB setting a ceiling for the Swiss franc last year. The SNB also published the results of an investigation into the trades, which found that the transactions did not breach SNB rules [my emphasis].
It turns out that because Hildebrand's wife did the trade, two days before the SNB started intervening to push the Swiss franc down, and Hildebrand didn't know about it, he's done nothing wrong. The investigation didn't say anything about whether his wife knew about the imminent intervention.
What hope is there that investment bankers will behave themselves when the public servants are front running, insider trading and using exactly the same legalistic, unethical arguments to justify their behaviour? It makes me sick.
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Hear, Hear SJ!
Although to be fair, I think he gave the profits to charity. Still a very poor example though.
He gave the profits to charity after he was found out! Actually, I think the wording was 'made a large donation to charity'. Whether it was as large as the profit they made I'm not sure.
Anyway, he quit last night, so he'll be able to do his trading out of the public limelight.
It's possible and likely that this man and not his wife did the trade. It is legal to trade another persons account with their permission (written). However, I presume thousands, if not millions of men buy and sell stuff for their partners without their knowledge and even if they do know they don't know the details. This is not malicious in most cases but is because of tax laws and maybe to escape detection and punishment as in this case.
It sounds like a sophisticated trade and did his wife do this regularly and was she financially savvy?
Yep, she knows what she's doing. They both worked at the same hedge fund (which is where they met). Even if he had no idea though, surely the wife of the central bank chief should know she shouldn't be trading currency.
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