Bloomberg The European Central Bank is struggling to revive the region’s economy, Britain and Greece are moving closer to leaving the European Union — and Switzerland is feeling the pain. The franc has been climbing, again. Since hitting a low of 1.12 against the euro on Feb. 3, the currency has gained almost 3 percent, and is now trading just …

Frankfurt / AFP Germany at the start of the year introduced a corporate “women’s quota” obliging its 100 biggest companies to fill at least 30 percent of their supervisory board seats with females. But for many, including several of the women executives themselves, the new legislation has so far proved something of a “paper tiger”. “The law is addressing the …

New York / AFP Confronted with a sluggish global economy, US companies have settled on a controversial tool that rewards shareholders and executives: share buybacks. First permitted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 1982, the use of share buybacks has spread rapidly over the last five years due in part to pressure from activist investors anxious for a …