Dear Friends,
As you may be aware Switzerland has enacted a number of legislative acts with the declared aim of combating dirty money laundering. The primary source of regulation in this respect is the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 1st April 1998.
As any regulated professional money management business we are obliged under the law to establish the source of client's funds as well as collect certain information / documentation about the client's economic activity. We understand that this may cause delays in processing documentation for opening accounts as well as raise the client's concern that certain information is sought which is none of the money manager's direct business.

In this regard we have to state the following to all our prospective clients:

1.   The law is the law, and we will kindly ask you to furnish us with whatever information or documents we are obliged to seek from you under the law.

2.   We are sternly against the arrogance of some institutions directed towards clients from certain countries or of certain ethnic origin. All clients are equally to be respected.

3.   Whatever information you provide to us in the course of mandatory disclosure will be kept confidential, except, of course for the cases when the authorities order it to be released to them in accordance with the law. Please see our Confidentiality Policy for more details.

To help you prepare to deal with our due diligence procedures in advance we can, although each case is different and we reserve the right to ask other questions, summarise our basic due diligence requirements as follows:

   You should identify yourself so that we have no doubts that you are you. This means that we need to have a copy of your passport on our file. If you are dealing with us through a corporation (offshore companies are a typical vehicle for placing money in Switzerland), we need to have a set of company's papers and get to understand that it is indeed your company (for example, see a nominee declaration if you are holding the shares through a nominee).

   You should explain and substantiate with certain documents (which may vary case from case) where the money you are entrusting us to manage comes from. The law requires us to know the economic activity (for example, trading in oil) which caused you to earn the capital in question.

We will be happy to answer any specific questions which you may have to let you have a better understanding of the procedures involved in placing your money in the Swiss banking system.