Swiss Credit Suisse Bondholders File Lawsuit Against Swiss Banking Supervisory Authority for 1.7 Billion Dollar Write-Off Before UBS Acquisition

Hundreds of Swiss Credit Suisse bondholders have filed a lawsuit against the Swiss Banking Supervisory Authority after writing off the value of their bonds issued by the bank, which amounted to 1.7 billion dollars, before the sale of the troubled bank to its Swiss competitor, UBS, with the support of the Swiss government.

The legal services company, “Palace Partners”, which filed the lawsuit before a Swiss court on April 18, stated that the Banking Supervision Authority “Finma” does not have the right to order the write-off of the value of the bonds, and demanded that its clients obtain compensation for the full value of the bonds.

The company represents 90 investment institutions and asset management companies that own bonds from Credit Suisse called the “Additional First Class” at a value of $1.35 billion, in addition to 700 individual investors and family companies who own bonds worth $300 million.

“This was an abuse of process and procedure and Switzerland should not use the settlement procedure to enable UBS to acquire Credit Suisse at the expense of priority bondholders,” Natasha Harrison, founding and managing partner of Palace, said in a statement.

Last March, Swiss bank UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse for 3 billion francs ($3.24 billion).

This step came after the Swiss Federal Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority asked the two banks to quickly complete the deal to restore the necessary confidence in the stability of the Swiss economy and banking system.