Swiss prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into the leak of thousands of account details at Credit Suisse last
year, in a case that is likely to have a chilling effect on whistleblowing in the secretive alpine country.Switzerland’s Federal prosecutor said yesterday it was investigating possible corporate espionage and breaches of the country’s banking secrecy laws in relation to an international investigation by a consortium of journalists into dirty money last February.
A series of articles published by organisations including the Süddeutsche Zeitung, The New York Times, The Guardian and Le Monde, under the tagline «Suisse Secrets», claimed to expose accounts at Credit Suisse holding billions of dollars on behalf of criminals and international human rights abusers.
The leak, which in total covered information on more than 18,000 Credit Suisse accounts, was the single biggest in Swiss banking history.
Bank Secrecy Act if they disclose, disseminate or publish information on the clients of Swiss banks. There is no public interest exemption.
The bank said yesterday that Credit Suisse «could not comment on ongoing legal procedures».
I wonder why they waited this long to do this. It was clear that things were and are not in order at Credit Suisse.
ReplyDeleteYou might be right and they are trying to hide something and/or protect some people (from the bank and clients of the bank). That could be the case or they just didn't have enough evidence to open the case against CS.
Delete@Bradley That seems to be the case. Lots of shady people use swiss banks to do their dirty work and unfortunately, there are lots of people who protect them. Let's see what prosecutors discover.
Delete@Martin I don't have high hopes something major will happen because CS has already had plenty of time to cover their tracks and make sure the really bad things they did aren't easily available.
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