Primary tabs

Credit Suisse probe puts Swiss authorities on back foot again

Bloomberg Published on Tue, Apr 04, 2017 / 8:40 AM GMT+8

A-

A+

GENEVA/ZURICH (April 4): The latest probe into Credit Suisse Group AG is a blow, not just for the firm but also for the Swiss attorney-general, who didn’t know some of the bank’s offices were going to be raided. This week, Swiss authorities are back in damage-control mode, after almost a decade of financial scandals spanning Bradley Birkenfeld’s whistle-blowing to the Panama Papers.

Finma, Switzerland’s financial watchdog, hosts its annual press conference at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, an event at which Chief Executive Officer Mark Branson will be questioned on what he knew about the March 30 raids in London, Paris and Amsterdam. On Wednesday, Swiss Attorney-General Michael Lauber will be at the center of another media scrum in the Swiss capital, Bern.

Having made two arrests last week, Dutch authorities are probing dozens more people suspected of concealing millions of euros in Swiss bank accounts, while criminal investigations are also under way in France, Germany, the UK and Australia. That raises the question whether the raids are a legacy of the untaxed assets accumulated before Swiss banks settled tax-evasion disputes with the r Department of Justice, or a sign of more intractable problems.