Credit Suisse leak: three largest parties call for EU to assess Switzerland risk

Three biggest groups in European parliament support possible move to high-risk list for money laundering

All three of the largest groups in the European parliament are demanding that the EU assess whether Switzerland should be categorised as a high-risk country for money laundering and financial crime, as reaction to the Credit Suisse leak continues to reverberate about the world.

Less than 48 hours after the Guardian and other media published an investigation into the leak as part of the Suisse secrets project, political groups representing the majority of MEPs in the European parliament support the possible blacklisting of Switzerland.

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Switzerland at risk of EU blacklist after Credit Suisse leak

Apparent due diligence failures by Swiss bank prompts centre-right calls for EU to review relationship with Switzerland

The fallout from a huge leak of Credit Suisse banking data threatened to damage Switzerland’s entire financial sector on Monday after the European parliament’s main political grouping raised the prospect of adding the country to a money-laundering blacklist.

The European People’s party (EPP), the largest political grouping of the European parliament, called for the EU to review its relationship with Switzerland and consider whether it should be added to its list of countries associated with a high risk of financial crime.

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Revealed: king of Jordan used Swiss accounts to hoard massive wealth

Leak shows King Abdullah was beneficial owner of at least six Credit Suisse accounts

In 2011, as popular revolts reverberated around the Middle East, a monarch in the midst of it all made some banking decisions. Sometime that year, as neighbouring Egypt and Syria withered in the face of momentous civil protests, King Abdullah II of Jordan opened two new accounts with Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank that had discreetly served the region’s well-heeled for decades.

Abdullah, one of the world’s longest-serving current monarchs, had chosen a banker that shared his approach to secrecy, particularly surrounding his personal wealth. Over the next five years, the king was the beneficial owner of at least six accounts with Credit Suisse, while his wife, Queen Rania, had another.

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Credit Suisse fined £350m over Mozambique ‘tuna bonds’ loan scandal

Bank also pleads guilty to wire fraud and forgives hundred of millions of dollars of debt owed by country

Credit Suisse has been fined nearly £350m by global regulators, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, and agreed to forgive hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt owed by Mozambique in an attempt to draw a line under the long-running “tuna bonds” loan scandal.

The Swiss banking company had been accused of “serious” failings in its financial crime controls by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice that will put the bank under heavy monitoring for three years after having “defrauded US and international investors”.

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Credit Suisse executives depart after Archegos and Greensill losses

Directors’ bonuses scrapped as chief risk officer and investment bank chief exit

Credit Suisse has cancelled the bonuses of its directors, slashed its dividend and announced the departure of two senior executives as the bank revealed £3.4bn in losses from the collapse of the Archegos investment fund.

The Swiss bank is reeling from heavy exposure to Archegos and the business bank Greensill, which suffered successive but unrelated financial blow-ups.

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Top banks could be investigated over $20bn fire sale of hedge fund assets

Collapse of Archegos has reportedly prompted SEC and FCA inquiries into Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Nomura and others

UK and US regulators are looking into whether global investment banks breached rules by holding group discussions shortly before launching a fire sale of nearly $20bn worth of assets belonging to the distressed hedge fund Archegos Capital Management, according to reports.

The Securities Exchange Commission is said to have requested further information from major US banks Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, as well as Japan’s Nomura and Swiss lender Credit Suisse about a meeting with Archegos founder Bill Hwang on Thursday.

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Regulators around the world monitor collapse of US hedge fund

Liquidation of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets

Financial regulators across the world are monitoring the collapse of the New York-based billionaire Bill Hwang’s personal hedge fund.

The sudden liquidation of Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets that has left some of the world’s biggest investment banks nursing billions of dollars of losses.

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Banking and slavery: Switzerland examines its colonial conscience

BLM protests and fresh historical evidence are raising questions over the legacy of the founder of modern Switzerland, Alfred Escher

Alfred Escher wielded so much power and influence during his lifetime that he was nicknamed King Alfred I. An immense bronze statue of modern Switzerland’s founding father stands, fittingly, in front of Zurich’s main train station. Escher was a politician, but he was also an entrepreneur who founded the country’s railway network along with its leading university and the banking giant Credit Suisse.

The statue in Zurich has memorialised Escher for more than 100 years, but it may not be there much longer. A recently published study on Zurich’s involvement in slavery details problematic connections to Escher. The Escher dynasty owned a coffee plantation in Cuba with more than 80 slaves and Escher himself was involved in its sale.

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Credit Suisse apologises over black janitor act at chairman’s party

Bank’s former chief executive reportedly walked out of room during act at party last year

A leading investment bank has apologised for “any offence caused” after it was reported that its black former chief executive left his chairman’s birthday party when a black performer dressed as a janitor danced on stage.

The New York Times reported that Tidjane Thiam, who ran Credit Suisse between 2015 and February this year, walked out of the room during the act at Urs Rohner’s 6oth birthday celebration.

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European banks urged to stop funding oil trade in Amazon

Indigenous people in headwaters region say financing harms communities and ecosystems

Indigenous people living at the headwaters of the Amazon have called on European banks to stop financing oil development in the region, as it poses a threat to them and damages a fragile ecosystem, after a new report found $10bn in previously undisclosed funding for oil in the region.

The headwaters of the Amazon in Ecuador and Peru are home to more than 500,000 indigenous people, including some who choose to live in voluntary isolation. The area, covering about 30m hectares (74m acres), hosts a diverse rainforest ecosystem, but it is threatened by the expansion of oil drilling.

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Tidjane Thiam: the man who traded politics for finance after military coup

Ousted Credit Suisse chief transformed Prudential before City regulator censured him

Tidjane Thiam is the scion of an influential family whose political connections and history spread across two West African countries: Ivory Coast and Senegal.

The 57-year-old came to prominence in the UK when he was named as the head of Prudential in 2009, making him the first black chief executive of a major British company.

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Credit Suisse chief Tidjane Thiam ousted after spying scandal

The 57-year-old loses boardroom battle with Thomas Gottstein set to replace him

The Credit Suisse chief executive, Tidjane Thiam, has been ousted in the wake of a saga involving corporate espionage, an alleged car chase and personal vendettas that has sent shockwaves through Switzerland’s famously discreet banking community.

Thiam, widely seen as one of the finance world’s leading lights, resigned after losing a boardroom battle that erupted when the bank admitted to having hired private detectives to spy on former staff.

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Roger Federer responds to climate change criticism from Greta Thunberg

  • Credit Suisse closely linked with fossil fuel industry
  • #RogerWakeUpNow has been trending on Twitter

Roger Federer has issued a cautiously worded response to mounting criticism, including from climate activist Greta Thunberg, over his sponsorship deal with Credit Suisse.

A dozen Swiss activists appeared in court on Tuesday after refusing to pay a fine for playing tennis inside branches of Credit Suisse bank in November 2018, in a stunt intended to underscore Federer’s relationship with the Swiss financial giant, which is closely linked with the fossil fuel industry.

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Senior Credit Suisse executive quits over ‘extraordinary’ spying scandal

Bank rules surveillance of outgoing head of wealth management Iqbal Khan was ‘wrong and disproportionate’

Credit Suisse has sacked its chief operating officer over an “extraordinary” James Bond-style corporate espionage scandal in which the bank hired private detectives to tail a senior executive and his wife through the streets of Zurich following a row with his boss at a cocktail party.

Switzerland’s second-biggest bank said on Tuesday that Pierre-Olivier Bouée had left with immediate effect after the board of directors ruled that the seven-day spying operation was “wrong and disproportionate and has resulted in severe reputational damage to the bank”.

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Ex-Credit Suisse bankers arrested in $2bn fraud investigation

Trio arrested in London on US charges as calls grow for debt claim against Mozambique to be dropped

Three former Credit Suisse bankers have been arrested in London on US charges of alleged involvement in a fraud involving $2bn (£1.6bn) in loans to state-owned companies in Mozambique.

Mozambique’s former finance minister, Manuel Chang, and a senior executive from the shipbuilder Privinvest Group, Jean Boustani, have also been arrested in South Africa and New York, respectively, in recent days.

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