Members of Britain’s richest family get jail terms for exploiting Indian staff at Swiss mansion | The Straits Times

Will they serve it though?

There is a thing called "international arrest warrant". Of course they are rich enough to hide somewhere where the Swiss have no contract with, but I don't think they would enjoy that...

the germanic honor-culture has survived here and we value doing the right/honorable thing more than anything else.

If you were the Swedish kind of neutral I'd accept that, but you're the Swiss kind of neutral. You may have stopped selling weapons to both sides of a conflict, you may have even stopped providing offshore accounts for both sides of the conflict, but the overall attitude of "eh it's not in Switzerland it doesn't matter" is still around. Heck, you still harbour Nestle. At least you had the sense to go after Steinmetz, though.

the germanic honor-culture has survived here and we value doing the right/honorable thing more than anything else

Hahaha

[Except ](http://www.the.com/ germanic honor-culture has survived here and we value doing the right/honorable thing more than anything else) for when they didn't

that's my favourite theory, the germanic honor-culture has survived here and we value doing the right/honorable thing more than anything else.

i gotta take one look at your banking laws and who is banking in Switzerland to laugh that one out of the room.

Thanks for sharing.

Although, I abhor your countries neutrality. Take WWII for instance, being neutral kind of says yeah we are cool with both sides.

Also, your banking laws are a cancer on the rest of the world, but I shouldn’t throw stones from my glass house in the UK since we are also very good at offshoring money for deplorable people.

I will say I am fond of your progressive policies on terms of drug use and help for those that want it.

It's my impression that at least in the German-speaking cantoons the Swiss are the most "rules are rules are rules" of the German-speaking people.

Had this happened in Britain, it would've been swept under the rug since over there de facto and probably since forever, the rules apply very differently depending on the "importance" of people. (In fact I wouldn't at all be surprised if this was also happening in Britain and in there it was simply swept under the rug).

I don't think "rules are rules are rules" is a generic "honor" thing, rather it's the more specific norms of "social responsibility" (i.e. responsibility towards others).

Shocking, right?

My opinion of him hit a negative buffer overflow when I learned he came from McKinsey, I would have been skeptical to learn he wasn't classist

Can you elaborate?

Proof of suspicion in many jurysdictions is only needed for search warrant. There are things they can do without it. Like request from water company how much water is used when no people supposed to be there.

Okay, but could maybe you just go after the rich? For boo other reason than being rich? Because, in my experience , rich people tend to suck and that seems reason enough to investigate. Please?

Pls Switzerland?

Can they sell the mansion from abroad?

One day!

Bribes aren’t exactly a thing in Switzerland. I’m not saying there isn’t corruption but it’s not common.

Ba ha hahahaha... Thanks, I needed a good laugh...

Having you, a random citizen think there are no bribes and little corruption (I can't even type it without laughing) doesn't mean there aren't any.

Switzerland, the country that claims "neutrality" but acts as the world's best known financial, and physical, haven for not only the "anonymous" filthy rich like this family (who still have more influence on society as a whole than you can imagine), but actual dictators and war criminals, past and present, too IS corruption, in its entire essence. Its economical and political existence relies heavily on some of if not the dirtiest and most ill gotten money on the planet (the least dirty of which comes from wage theft on a global scale). Being discreet and polite about bribes and corruption is why. Maintaining favour with the evil people whose assets they protect will always be prioritised over anything else, including their local population (who are generally happy to look the other way as long as the dirty money keeps them in a relatively high standard of living, which is why they are kept in a relatively high standard of living), never mind the poor and or enslaved people overseas who are the ones actually paying the price.

That said they have to pay nearly a million dollars to the victims.

That IS a bribe, they're literally throwing pocket change at the problem to make it go away. Going on their net worth of $70.8b, if they spent a whole million dollars a day, they wouldn't notice it missing for nearly 200 years. And I say again - 4 of those years are categorically not going to be spent in prison, because they are never going to serve their entire sentence (and whatever part they might serve will undoubtedly be in greater comfort than they ever provided to those they enslave, and I deliberately use present tense because this isn't going to stop them), which was already a corrupt and pathetic slap on the wrist to begin with.

This isn't how you stop the filthy rich from enslaving people, this is how you put on a show for the poors to pretend to care while you continue to enable the exploiters and oppressors, because your government and economy depend on it (and because all of those "corruption scores" you see out there are based on perception, not fact).

And you're buying the act.

It's both. Trying to erase actual issues people care about (race / gender / culture / sexual orientation) doesn't work. You can't just say "don't worry about it". Not all struggle is class struggle. People actually care about their culture.

"Briton" is generally used as the noun form of "British", so when "Brit" is used as a noun - which is most of the time - it's abbreviating "Briton".

As for who gets to be called "Briton": In the loosest sense, anyone with residence in Britain can be counted as British when they're here, whether or not they're considered ethnically British (by themselves or others).

Bear in mind that "Briton" originally mean "an inhabitant of the British Isles before any of the Romans, or various flavours of Germanics turned up". There's been quite a bit of admixture since then. It makes sense - to the chagrin of the Welsh, no doubt - that the term has mutated a bit over the centuries.