Excerpt:
Credit Suisse Group AG overlooked red flags for years while a rogue private banker stole from billionaire clients, according to a report by a law firm for Switzerland’s financial regulator.
The private banker, Patrice Lescaudron, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for fraud and forgery. He admitted cutting and pasting client signatures to divert money and make stock bets without their knowledge, causing more than $150 million in losses, according to the Geneva criminal court.
The regulator, Finma, publicly censured Credit Suisse in 2018 for inadequately supervising and disciplining Mr. Lescaudron as a top earner, and said he had repeatedly broken internal rules, but it revealed little else about the bank’s actions in the matter. Credit Suisse said it discovered Mr. Lescaudron’s fraud in September 2015 when a stock he had bought for clients crashed.
Author: Margot Patrick
Publication Date: 5 February 2021
Publication Site: Wall Street Journal