Switzerland has claimed the top spot on the Global Innovation Index for the fourth-straight year while Sub-Saharan Africa "posted significant regional improvement".
A watershed free-trade deal between China and Switzerland came into force on Tuesday, the first such accord between the Asian giant and a mainland European economy.
Prosecutors on Wednesday arrested a former employee of the Japanese unit of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis for allegedly manipulating research data to exaggerate the benefits of a popular blood-pressure drug.
Guatemala's former police chief Erwin Sperisen on Friday received a life sentence in Switzerland for seven murders committed in the Central American country.
Hotel group Accor on Tuesday announced the purchase of 97 hotels in Europe through its HotelInvest business for a total of 900 million euros ($1 billion).
At a meeting of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan it was announced that according to international estimates the money offshored from Kazakhstan amounts to $138 billion.
Credit Suisse pleaded guilty and was fined $2.6 billion Monday for helping Americans avoid taxes, the first time in 20 years a major bank has been punished on US criminal charges.
Swiss voters on Sunday rejected a proposal to introduce the world's highest minimum wage, which would have guaranteed every worker in one of the world's priciest nations at least $25 an hour.
US President Barack Obama accused Russia on Thursday of failing to respect an agreement to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, the latest salvo in the Cold War-like duel between Washington and Moscow over the future of the ex-Soviet nation.
British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and Swiss peer Novartis announced a major shake-up of their healthcare divisions on Tuesday in deals worth billions of dollars.