The European Commission has seriously ruffled Swiss feathers by attempting to tie Swiss banking practices to bilateral trade negotiations. The EC charges Switzerland with less-than-assiduous efforts to curtail money laundering, tax evasion, and customs fraud through its banking system and insists on an information-sharing pact. Switzerland contends its laws, practices, and enforcement of regulations is better than the rest of Europe's, pointing to France as an example. Last year, Switzerland found just over 100 banking-related criminal violations, of which most were prosecuted, whereas France discovered more than 1,000, of which less than 200 were. Freer trade between the two entities may well hinge on this controversy.