Antonio Horta-Osorio, former CEO of Credit Suisse, shortly after his arrival at the Swiss bank declared: “We are committed to developing a culture of personal credibility and responsibility.” 2021 is the year of the Archegos and Greensill scandals, both of which involve Credit Suisse. On the other hand, scandals and remedial promises now make up a history of more than twenty years.
In 1999, a Credit Suisse subsidiary in Japan was shut down by the authorities for destroying documentation relating to a financial scam investigation. A spokesperson for the group said, “We have learned important lessons and taken corrective action.” In 2000, Swiss authorities were fined for laundering the money of Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha and his son. “We have taken adequate measures to make sure that nothing like this happens in the future.” In 2009, the US authorities received a 536 million fine for violating sanctions on Iran and Sudan. The spokesman: “Incidents of this type will no longer be tolerated”. In 2014, the American authorities again fined the institute, this time for 2.6 billion for helping American citizens to defraud the tax authorities. The then CEO said he was “deeply sorry that past misconduct led to this fine.” In 2016 a new fine in the US, this time for money laundering. The spokesperson: we have cooperated with the authorities and taken the appropriate measures. In 2017 the corruption case of the Malaysian fund 1Mdb broke out. Singapore authorities fines Credit Suisse for money laundering. The statement: “Credit Suisse has a very clear understanding of its obligations for the prevention of money laundering”. The same year, a large-scale operation against tax evasion affected 55,000 customers of the bank in France, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia. The bank buys an advertising page in the newspapers that says: “Credit Suisse has a strict zero tolerance policy and wishes to conduct business with clients who have paid their taxes.” In 2021 it pays 350 million dollars to close the accusations on the “tuna bonds”. Three employees are accused of having diverted $ 2 billion from the Monetary Fund earmarked for Mozambique for a tuna fishing project. In between were the accusations for laundering the funds of a Yakuza clan, the German investigations into tax evasion, the involvement in the subprime scandal in the USA, the 100 million paid to the Italian authorities for a fraudulent scheme that allowed the customers to hide from the tax authorities about 14 billion, the allegations of corruption to Chinese officials to obtain public contracts. Horta-Osorio, the one of “personal responsibility”, resigned last January. He had broken the quarantine rules to go to the Wimbledon final.