Switzerland's biggest bank UBS AG posted Tuesday a
1.9 billion francs ($2.1 billion) loss for the fourth quarter in the wake of a
series of lawsuits, scandals and a wave of restructuring.
The Zurich-based bank attributed the loss mainly to
"net charges for provisions for litigation, regulatory and similar matters
as well as net restructuring charges and an own credit loss." In contrast,
UBS made a net profit of 324 million francs in the fourth quarter of 2011
despite a $2-billion rogue trading scandal.
UBS also ended 2012 with a loss of more than 2.2 billion
francs ($2.4 billion), compared with a profit of 4.4 billion francs for 2011.
UBS is one of the world's largest managers of private wealth
assets and is on the list of the 29 "global systemically important
banks" that the Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International
Settlements, the central bank for central banks, considers too big to fail.
In December, UBS agreed to pay some $1.5 billion in fines to
international regulators following a probe into the rigging of a key global
interest rate. In admitting to fraud in its Japanese unit, UBS became the
second bank, after Britain's Barclays PLC, to settle over the rate-rigging
scandal.
UBS and the reputation of the global banking industry
suffered last year, battered by an industry-wide investigation into alleged
manipulations of the benchmark LIBOR interest rate, short for London interbank
offered rate. It's also seen its reputation bruised by a London trial into a
multibillion dollar trading scandal and ongoing tax evasion probes.
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