The Federal Council instructed the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) to prepare three measures in the area of compensation practices. These target primarily the compensation practices of financial institutions.

The Supreme Administrative Court has recently in its decision (KHO:2010:15) upheld the preliminary ruling of the European Court of Justice C-303/07 (Aberdeen Property Finninvest Alpha Oy), in which the ECJ considered that Finnish withholding taxes levied on dividends paid by a Finnish limited liability company to its Luxembourg SICAV parent company constituted a restriction of freedom of establishment and that such withholding taxes thus should be abolished in circumstances where similar dividends paid to a Finnish parent company were exempt from taxation.

Switzerland and France have formally agreed on the interpretation of the renegotiated double taxation agreement (DTA). The two countries have also noted that the data stolen from HSBC in Geneva will not be used for requests for administrative assistance from France.

With today's signing of the new double taxation agreement (DTA) with Qatar by President Hans-Rudolf Merz and the Prime Minister of Qatar, Switzerland has been swift to implement the OECD criteria.