Swatch Group Sues UBS Over Broken Investment Promises

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Oct 8th 2010 at 6:02PM

This is a case that many people around the world would like to take up with their financial advisers. Back during the bubble, the late Nicolas Hayek took advice from UBS and put money in what is being claimed were "absolute return fund" investments. The investments were not absolute, and the Swatch Group lost money. They claim that UBS misrepresented the risk and breached implicit promises of "assured returns." Swatch Group is seeking a return of about 30 million Swiss Francs. Swatch Group is the largest watch conglomerate in the world and responsible for a number of Swiss watch brands.

Success for the Swatch Group in Switzerland would set precedent that investment providers such as UBS would be required to either compensate clients for lost investments (perhaps also earnings) as well as spend much more time and effort offering risk disclosures to clients. They will of course claim that a victory for Swatch Group would open the doors to tons of other litigants - but is that so bad given the behavior of UBS and a like companies over the last few years? There are risky investments, and there are misleading and irresponsible ones. Swatch Group doesn't need the 30 million, but new CEO Nick Hayek (after the death of his father) wishes to make a stand on the issue.

Via Financial Times and WorldTempus.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: investment, sue, suit, Swatch Group, UBS, watch