Finma Appoints Thomas Werlen as Credit Suisse Investigator
Finma Appoints Thomas Werlen as Credit Suisse Investigator
(Bloomberg) -- Swiss market regulator Finma has appointed Thomas Werlen, Novartis’s former general counsel, to investigate Credit Suisse Group AG’s surveillance allegations, Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Werlen is a partner at law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan (Schweiz) GmbH and will support Finma in its ongoing probe into the spying affair that contributed to the downfall of Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam.
News that the bank spied on star banker Iqbal Khan after he announced his departure for crosstown rival UBS Group AG emerged in September, followed by further allegations of surveillance of employees, including of human resources chief Peter Goerke. An investigation by Swiss law firm Homburger into the affair concluded that Chief Operating Officer Pierre-Olivier Bouee alone was to blame. He was fired at the end of 2019.
While Thiam was absolved of responsibility in an internal probe, the case unsettled regulators, who have launched their own inquiry into the culture at the top of the firm.
Finma is interested primarily in the structures and processes of corporate governance. The regulator wants to know who within the bank gave what kind of orders and when, the Swiss newspaper reported. Finma also wants to look into what kind of electronic communication channels were used.
To contact the reporter on this story: Corinne Gretler in Zurich at cgretler1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Nick Rigillo, Christopher Sell
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