ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss financial markets regulator FINMA has ordered an audit into how Credit Suisse handled the events that led to its demise in 2023, when the bank was acquired by its long-time rival UBS, the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported on Sunday.
According to the newspaper, FINMA is looking at the 15 months leading up to the state-orchestrated merger in March last year, for which almost a dozen current or former employees of the two banks were interviewed, according to the report.
To conduct the audit of crisis management at Credit Suisse, FINMA commissioned law firm Wenger Plattner, which conducted the interviews, the newspaper reported.
That appointment followed what the newspaper said was a “secret” order issued by FINMA in September 2023, informing banks that they wanted to assess how Credit Suisse was handling the crisis. The interviews with staff should reveal whether the authorities were misled by Credit Suisse’s then management, the newspaper said.
FINMA, the Swiss Ministry of Finance and the Swiss National Bank did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. Wenger Plattner and UBS declined to comment.
The investigation includes questions such as when it became clear that Credit Suisse could no longer be saved, what the bank’s liquidity was like, what its equity looked like and what its management was like in general, the newspaper said.
In a report issued in December, FINMA said Credit Suisse nearly imploded months before the takeover and called for stronger powers to supervise the banks.
A Swiss parliamentary committee that investigated how authorities handled the collapse of Credit Suisse is expected to issue its report later this year.
Swiss authorities presented a package of measures in April – including stricter capital requirements for UBS – aimed at preventing a repeat of the Credit Suisse crisis.
It is expected that Parliament will debate these proposals following the publication of the parliamentary report.
Critics of the Credit Suisse takeover argue that Swiss authorities could have kept the bank running as a separate company, but acted slowly and should have given greater guarantees that the bank would survive.
Authorities have defended their actions and pointed to failures at Credit Suisse as a result of the collapse.
