Key Insights
- About 500 individual shareholders of Credit Suisse will file a class-action lawsuit in the commercial court of Zurich due to the bank’s merger with UBS.
- The Swiss Association for the Protection of Investors (SASV) intends to file a lawsuit on their behalf on Monday.
- Shareholders, including former Credit Suisse employees, say they suffered significant losses due to the merger
Hundreds of individual shareholders of Credit Suisse will file a class-action lawsuit in the commercial court of Zurich over the bank’s merger with UBS, Financial Times reports.
Credit Suisse Shareholders to File the second Class Action Lawsuit Over UBS Merger
The lawsuit on behalf of about 500 shareholders is going to be filed on Monday by the Swiss Investor Protection Association (SASV).
Most of the plaintiffs are Swiss, but there are also British, Germans, Austrians, US citizens and Thai nationals among them. In addition, some of those who filed a complaint are former employees of Credit Suisse who received bank shares as payments or rewards.
The merger between Credit Suisse and rival UBS has resulted in significant shareholder losses, SASV secretary Arik Reschke told the paper. When some plaintiffs received Credit Suisse shares 15 years ago, they were worth more than 80 Swiss francs (€83), but the deal with UBS only paid 0.76 Swiss francs (€0.79) each, Reschke said.
This is the second class-action lawsuit filed by Credit Suisse shareholders against UBS, in addition, bondholders filed complaints.
It is expected that the lawsuit filed by SASV will be considered within a year. Reschke notes that if the court takes the side of the plaintiffs, the bank will probably have to pay not only them, but all shareholders and spend billions of dollars on this.
MarketsXplora reached out to UBS but they declined to comment.
UBS and Credit Suisse announced their merger on March 19, 2023. During the deal, Credit Suisse was valued at 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.2 billion), half the bank’s market capitalization before the takeover news.
On June 12, UBS announced the completion of the deal to purchase Credit Suisse. The shareholders of both banks were not given the opportunity to vote on the merger.
This week, UBS announced that it had voluntarily waived a 9 billion franc ($10.3 billion) insurance guarantee from the Swiss government that the authorities provided as part of a deal to sell Credit Suisse.
Removing the guarantee would give UBS more leverage over Credit Suisse’s risky assets, a source familiar with Bloomberg said. In addition, the decision shows the bank’s confidence in its financial stability, the agency said.
The rejection of state support also looks positive from a political point of view: government guarantees in the deal between UBS and Credit Suisse have drawn criticism in Switzerland, Bloomberg wrote.
Shares of UBS at the close of trading on August 11 rose 4.72% to 20.32 francs ($23.17).