Switzerland concludes that Credit Suisse committed irregularities by spying on executives

The supervisory authorities of the Swiss markets (Finma) concluded this Wednesday that one of the country’s largest banks, Credit Suisse, showed “serious organizational deficiencies” by spying on several of its executives, in a scandal that began in 2019 .

Finma concludes after months of analysis of the case that the bank presented important organizational failures with its supervisory activities when planning and executing seven investigations between 2016 and 2019, including two carried out on its managers in Switzerland.

Due to these irregularities, Finma has warned two people in writing and opened an execution process against three others ”, although it refrained from giving the names of those affected by the sanctions.

At least two former members of the Credit Suisse board of directors were spied on: the former director of human resources Peter Goerke and the head of international fortune management at the entity, Iqbal Khan, who received this type of follow-up as a result of his departure to rival bank UBS was known.

“The bank carried out follow-up activities that entailed great risks to its reputation when these activities did not appear in formal and documented decision-making processes, nor in an adequate control environment,” Finma concluded through a statement.

Credit Suisse took measures to deal with this scandal that according to Finma were “adequate” to remedy many of the problems observed, although the authority ordered additional measures such as the preparation of new internal reports on these activities.

It adds that this type of follow-up activities must be approved at the highest level of management, including the CEO and the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

When the spying on Khan and Goerke became known, Credit Suisse ordered the departure of several of its top executives, including then-managing director Tidjane Thiam.

Finma’s ruling comes a day after its US counterpart, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reported that Credit Suisse has agreed to pay US $ 475 million to the US and UK authorities. United for “fraudulently misleading investors.”

The SEC believes that the Swiss entity violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by assisting in the processing of bond offers and a syndicated loan for Mozambican state entities between 2013 and 2016.

These activities, which together raised more than a billion dollars, were used to pay bribes, although they were presented to investors as a way to finance the development of maritime safety and tuna fishing in the African country, the SEC detailed in a statement.