Credit Suisse loses case over banker who stole from billionaire clients

Former Georgian prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has received a long-running battle with Credit score Suisse to reclaim funds stolen by a former worker of the Swiss financial institution, in line with folks with data of the case.

Credit score Suisse introduced on Wednesday night that it might be compelled to pay in extra of $500mn as soon as a courtroom in Bermuda publishes a judgment in opposition to the financial institution’s native life insurance coverage subsidiary.

The Bermuda courtroom is predicted to publish its judgment subsequent week, however folks briefed on the case confirmed it was associated to Ivanishvili’s grievance and that the courtroom had present in his favour.

“Credit score Suisse has beforehand taken reserves in opposition to this matter and intends to pursue all out there authorized actions,” the financial institution mentioned in a press release.

In January, the financial institution mentioned it had taken a SFr436mn ($469mn) provision within the fourth quarter of 2021 to cowl litigation settlements, however added these have been principally tied to its funding banking enterprise.

“We are going to take into account whether or not any additional reserves are required as a part of our first-quarter outcomes on account of be printed on April 27, 2022,” it added on Wednesday. The financial institution declined to remark additional.

Ivanishvili declined to remark and the Bermuda courtroom didn’t reply to requests for remark by the point of publication.

Billionaire Ivanishvili’s dispute with Credit score Suisse goes again to 2011 when he was a non-public banking consumer of the group.

It was then that particulars emerged that for greater than a decade, Credit score Suisse non-public banker Patrice Lescaudron defrauded a few of the Swiss financial institution’s most delicate accounts — together with these held by Ivanishvili and Russian oligarch Vitaly Malkin — funding a lavish life-style of luxurious homes, sports activities vehicles, Rolex watches and items of Chanel jewelry.

A damning report into the affair by the Swiss regulator Finma, which was inadvertently made public final February, discovered repeated warning indicators, proof of a whole lot of suspicious transactions and 4 formal disciplinary proceedings weren’t acted upon by Credit score Suisse.

Ivanishvili has made a number of felony complaints in Switzerland and sued Credit score Suisse’s Bermuda subsidiary in a trial on the nation’s supreme courtroom in November and December final 12 months.

Credit score Suisse has lengthy maintained that Lescaudron — who was criminally convicted in 2018 and died by suicide in 2020 after an early launch — was a extremely profitable rogue operator who labored tirelessly to cover his criminal activity from superiors and colleagues. The Swiss felony case in opposition to Lescaudron discovered the financial institution to have been a wronged celebration.