Is it all over for Liechtenstein? Hit by the sale of stolen bank account details to foreign investigative authorities, the tiny tax haven has revealed the fall-put from this major breach in its traditional wall of secrecy. Prince Max of Liechtenstein admits in a newspaper interview with the German paper, "Welt am Sonntag" that his banking house, the LGT Bank, has suffered withdrawals of customers' money to the tune of "several billion" Swiss Francs, although he does not offer further details.
He even indicated that one facet of such a solution might be "closer co-operation with tax authorities". Word is, that despite the economic downturn, Deripaska - Lord Mandelson's summer boating pal - has opened a rather upmarket French restaurant in Moscow after becoming impressed with a waitress he met at another local eatery.
Local legend has it that Deripaska so admired her, he created Kukhnya, on the corner of the Fontanka and Gorokhovaya Ulitsa, especially for her to run a few months ago. The restaurant is described as "elegant," and "precisely the sort of place where Peter would like to eat," my man in the fur hat and felt boots says. You realise there were certain things you shouldn't do, but the urge is there and you can't resist" - David Rubenstein of Carlyle Group on how he invested in the boom years.
It was the largest such fine levied by the Financial Services Authority and Aon has committed to overhauling its procedures and having zero tolerance to practices like that in the future. Odd then, that Aon's London-based aviation team recently hosted a jolly of aviation underwriters primarily from Lloyd's in the exclusive Austrian ski resort of Lech.
No form of bribery there then? When Peter Boizot opened his first PizzaExpress in Wardour Street, Soho in , he turned around someone else's misfortune, taking on the PizzaExpress name and restaurant from Margaret Zampi, widow of the late film director Mario Zampi, when it was on the verge of liquidation. But now Boizot's luck has turned. His Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough, which he pledged would only be demolished "over his dead body" when the Victorian building was a potential victim of area regeneration, has gone into administration.
