Basler KB chairman to step down after rebuke over rigging stock

Basler Kantonalbank

29/11/2013 06:48

ZURICH, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Basler Kantonalbank  BSKP.S  said Chairman Andreas Albrecht will step down by year-end, after the bank was ordered to pay back 2.64 million Swiss francs ($2.9 million) in profits earned by propping up the price of its own participation certificates.  The local government-backed bank conceded in a statement on Friday it could have acted faster to clean up what the Swiss regulator termed "significant irregularities" in trading of the bank's certificates between 2009 and 2012.  ID:nWEB00EK5  The manipulation was the latest in a series of scandals for the bank. Basler Kantonalbank is also among roughly a dozen Swiss banks under U.S. criminal investigation for helping wealthy Americans evade tax via hidden offshore accounts, to which it made no reference in Friday's statement. The bank's CEO, Hans Rudolf Matter, stepped down last October after the bank said clients lost more than 100 million francs due to a scandal involving foreign exchange investment firm ASE.  ID:nL5E8LN3VK  ($1 = 0.9063 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Katharina Bart; Editing by David Holmes) ((Katharina.Bart@thomsonreuters.com)(+41 58 306 7312)(Reuters Messaging: katharina.bart.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) Keywords: BASLERKB CHAIRMAN/