CS Victims Laud Fraud Report Findings And Demand Credit Suisse Return Client Funds

LONDON, Feb. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- CS Victims, a group of Credit Suisse Wealth Management clients who are victims of an estimated $1 billion fraud perpetrated by the Bank's personnel, today lauded the findings of a report into how the Bank failed to prevent and uncover crimes by one of its former star bankers, Patrice Lescaudron. The group reiterated its pleas for the Bank to return their investments and more than $150 million in fees paid to the Bank as a result of the criminal activity.

The release of the 282-page report prepared by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) had been opposed by Credit Suisse AG, which won a court order in September to keep the three-year-old report secret.

FINMA's report paints a devastating picture of dysfunction, inadequate controls, and a jarring lack of oversight and follow through at the Swiss bank, according to CS Victims. Irregularities included not providing information to clients, executing transactions without client confirmation and ignoring internal controls. In addition, the report states that over 180 automated warnings were ignored whilst senior executives worked against each other and refused to share information.

A spokesman for CS Victims said "the report contradicts Credit Suisse's oft-stated position that the Bank had no reason to believe Lescaudron was committing a crime and that its internal controls were sufficient. The reality is several of the Bank's employees raised concerns about Lescaudron, concerns that had they been properly investigated would have most certainly led to the discovery of the fraud much sooner, limiting the harm to clients.  Instead, the concerns were ignored, time and time again."

In one remarkable example, FINMA found Credit Suisse's current Head of Risk, Jörg Rosskopf, was aware of certain of Lescaudron's misconduct "but could not prevail against other employees of the Bank, who advocated a lesser punishment of" Lescaudron. In a statement that should cause concern amongst all current and former Credit Suisse clients, the FINMA report said Rosskopf "refrained from further escalating the allegations, fearing that this would mean a breach of loyalty to his line management and that he could lose his position within the Bank."

"Any Credit Suisse client should be gravely concerned with the report's specific and detailed findings of inadequate controls and failure to protect client interests," the CS Victims spokesman said. "Once again, we are asking the Bank to do the right thing and return the clients' funds and fees generated in the course of a crime."

The full report can be viewed at https://csvictims.com/download-report/

For further information, please contact [email protected] or visit https://csvictims.com/

Information for editors

CS Victims was established by the representatives of certain clients of Credit Suisse.

They are victims of an estimated $1 billion fraud perpetrated by the Bank's personnel over seven years. At least one of Credit Suisse's employees has been convicted of fraud and FINMA has highlighted failures in Credit Suisse's systems and controls which led directly to crimes being committed.

SOURCE CS Victims