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An internal investigation by the Swiss major bank Credit Suisse has found that CEO António Horta-Osório has broken quarantine rules in connection with the coronavirus for the second time. This raises doubts about the top manager’s personal judgment at the same time as he is working to fix the bank’s cultural problems and reputation, skriver Financial Times.
The investigation revealed that Horta-Osório broke the isolation rules when he flew to London in July this year and was present at the Wimbledon final in tennis while he was actually sitting in isolation, according to British corona rules. At the time of the incident, the rules said that travelers from Switzerland, such as Horta-Osório, should be in isolation for ten days after entry. The Credit Suisse boss should not have done that.
The Financial Times writes that the investigation has been completed and the findings have been presented to the bank’s board, which will now decide what to do.
Horta-Osório was hired in April this year to fix problems related to culture and the ability to manage risk in the Swiss bank. The combination of the two problems were key factors in the crises that have affected the bank this year, and which have led to massive losses.
Not the first violation of the rules
Also on an earlier occasion, Horta-Osório has been caught breaking corona rules. In November 2020, he broke the Swiss isolation rules when he chose to drop the imposed isolation period, and flew back to London only three days after arriving in Switzerland.
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In retrospect, he apologized, believing that the violation of the corona rules was a mistake and he did not knowingly break the rules.
However, the Swiss newspaper Blick reported that Horta-Osório had initially applied for an exemption from the quarantine rules, but that he had been rejected by the Swiss authorities.
Tough 2021 for the bank
The Swiss major bank has had a tough 2021. The bank’s reputation as the foremost of the major banks from the Alpine country is at stake due to two scandals, which also contributed to the bank losing over 800 million dollars in the first quarter of this year.
- The bank was heavily involved in the pull after the bankrupt financial company Greensill Capital, which collapsed earlier this year and had to withhold an investment of more than ten billion dollars in Greensill.
- The bank also ended up in the corner of shame when it became known that it had the largest exposure of all the financial institutions that had assisted in hedge fund manager Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital huge bets on individual shares, which ended with the fund going over at Easter. Credit Suisse lost a total of $ 5.5 billion on the case of Archegos.
Furthermore, it was too five-year conflict between former top manager Tidjane Thiam and former star broker Iqbal Khan a hot topic in 2021. The conflict arose after a confrontation at a cocktail party, and ended with a settlement this summer. Tidjane Thiam also resigned as top manager of the bank in February 2020.
The Credit Suisse share has so far this year fallen by about 25 percent. In comparison, the share of the bank’s largest competitor UBS will rise by about 30 per cent in 2021.(Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and / or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases using a link, which leads directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the content may only take place with written permission or as permitted by law. For additional terms look here.
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