The most valuable deposit in Switzerland's bulging banks is secrecy, which the Swiss have shrewdly used to lure shy money from all over the world. Any threat to this hush-hush, confessional quality is therefore a blow at the very center of the multibillion-dollar Swiss banking industry. By the same token, a nation or group that sets out to track down the wealth of teetering tyrants or the merely discreet rich frequently looks with frustration to the Swiss banks, with their anonymous sanctuary and numbered accounts. Last week secrecy and the desire for disclosure clashed in the Swiss courts...
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