News yesterday that employees in UBS's wealth management division in London made unauthorised trades that cost clients more than $42m could not have come at a worse time for the Swiss bank.
Not only has UBS been hit by the third-largest fine ever by the UK Financial Services Authority, but the details of the improper trading could well make already skittish clients more nervous about the bank's wealth management division.
Hit hard by the financial crisis, UBS has already spent much of the year embroiled in a bitter legal battle with the US authorities over the activities of some private bankers catering out of Switzerland for rich US offshore clients.