Here are the main cases the bank has faced in recent years:
Bermuda Affairs
A Bermuda court ruled in March that former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and her family should receive damages of more than half a billion dollars from the local life insurance arm of the Credit Swiss.
The court said Bidzina Ivanishvili and her family were entitled to damages due to a long-standing fraud committed by former Credit Suisse adviser Pascale Lescaudron.
Lescaudron was convicted by a Swiss court in 2018 of forging the signatures of former clients, including Ivanishvili, over an eight-year period.
Credit Suisse expects the case, which it is appealing, to cost it around $600 million.
The “secrets of Switzerland”
Credit Suisse has denied allegations of wrongdoing after dozens of news outlets in February published the results of coordinated, Panama Papers-style investigations into a data leak involving thousands of accounts held by the bank over the previous decades. .
The allegations contained in the “Suisse Secrets” press articles indicated in particular that the bank counted among its customers perpetrators of human rights violations and businessmen under sanctions.
President Horta-Osorio
President Antonio Horta-Osorio resigned in January after breaking COVID-19 quarantine rules.
The abrupt move came less than a year after Mr Horta-Osorio was tasked with cleaning up the bank’s corporate culture, tainted by his involvement in the collapsed investment firm Archegos, and in the supply chain finance company Greensill Capital, which went bankrupt.
Axel Lehmann, member of the board of directors, took over the position of chairman.
Tuna Bond Fraud
Credit Suisse has pleaded guilty to defrauding investors over an $850 million loan to Mozambique to fund a tuna fishing fleet. It will pay $475 million to US and UK regulators to settle the case under a deal announced in October.
About $200 million of the loan was paid in bribes to Credit Suisse bankers and Mozambican government officials. The bank was aware of a huge shortfall between the funds raised and the value of the boats purchased, but did not tell investors about it when the loan was restructured in 2016, regulators said.
Credit Suisse also arranged a loan which was kept secret from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). When Mozambique admitted to taking $1.4 billion in undisclosed loans, the IMF withdrew its support, sending the southern African country’s economy plunging.
Bankruptcy of Archegos
Credit Suisse lost $5.5 billion when US family office Archegos Capital Management defaulted in March 2021.
The hedge fund’s high-leverage bets on some technology stocks backfired and the value of its portfolio at Credit Suisse plummeted.
An independent report on the incident criticized the bank’s conduct, saying its losses were the result of a fundamental failure in the management and control of its investment bank, and its prime brokerage division in particular.
The report said the bank focused on maximizing short-term profits and failed to rein in Archegos’ voracious risk-taking, despite numerous red flags, calling into question the competence of its risk personnel.
Collapse of Greensill Funds
Credit Suisse was forced to freeze $10 billion in supply chain finance funds in March 2021 when UK financier Greensill Capital collapsed after losing insurance cover for debt issued against its business loans.
The Swiss bank had sold billions of dollars of Greensill debt to investors, assuring them in marketing materials that the high-yield notes were low-risk because the underlying credit exposure was fully insured.
A number of investors have sued the Swiss bank over Greensill-linked funds. So far, the bank has repaid around $6.8 billion to investors.
Shareholder anger
Credit Suisse shareholders have rejected a proposal by the bank’s board to relieve management of other responsibilities for 2020, underscoring shareholder anger over the bank’s costly missteps.
The vote garnered just 35.88% approval at the bank’s AGM in April, as proxy advisers pointed to the risk and control deficiencies that led to the collapses of Greensill and Archegos.
Shareholders therefore have the option of holding directors liable for willful or grossly negligent breaches of their obligations under Swiss rules.
Spy Scandal
Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam was forced to resign in March 2020 after an investigation revealed the bank had hired private investigators to spy on its former chief wealth manager, Iqbal Kahn, following his departure for its great rival UBS. Credit Suisse has repeatedly downplayed this episode, calling it an isolated incident.
However, the Swiss financial regulator said Credit Suisse misled it about the extent of the espionage. The regulator said the bank planned seven different spying operations between 2016 and 2019 and carried out most of them.
In a rare rebuke, the regulator said there were serious organizational shortcomings at Credit Suisse and the bank had even tried to cover its tracks by tampering with an invoice for surveillance.
In response, Credit Suisse said it condemned espionage and had taken “decisive” steps to improve its governance and strengthen compliance.