UBS Wants Top Exec Iqbal Khan to Withdraw Criminal Complaint

(Bloomberg) -- UBS Group AG wants top executive Iqbal Khan to drop his criminal complaint into a spying episode that roiled Switzerland’s largest banks in recent weeks, according to a media report.

The board of directors of Switzerland’s biggest lender would welcome it if Khan, the bank’s co-head of wealth management, abandons the complaint that is aimed at three private detectives who observed him during his last weeks of leave at Credit Suisse Group AG, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported, citing people close to the board.

The board is concerned that new details related to the spying scandal will continue to be made public, which could damage Khan, the newspaper wrote. UBS declined to comment on the ongoing criminal proceedings to SonntagsZeitung. A spokeswoman for UBS referred back to the response to the newspaper when contacted by Bloomberg News.

Khan joined under a cloud after it emerged that Credit Suisse had private investigators follow him to make sure he didn’t try to encourage others to join him at UBS. The scandal exploded onto the front pages of local tabloids and exposed a personal feud between Khan and his former boss, Tidjane Thiam. One of Thiam’s top lieutenants left the bank after he was found responsible for ordering the surveillance.

Zurich prosecutors are probing whether Khan was threatened just days before he was due to start at UBS, and launched criminal proceedings in response to a complaint from the executive, a spokesman for the Zurich public prosecutor’s office said last month.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Winters in Zurich at pwinters3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Jon Menon, Amy Teibel

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