GENEVA (AFP) – Russian oligarch Vitaly Malkin is suing Credit Suisse for the loss of USD515 million he claims was the fault of a former adviser at the Swiss banking giant, Sonntagszeitung daily reported yesterday.
Malkin, a resident of Monaco and an ex-business partner of former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, has hired the American firm Quinn Emanuel to sue Credit Suisse in the case concerning Patrice Lescaudron, the newspaper reported.
Lescaudron was a former private banker at Credit Suisse in Geneva but was sacked in 2015.
A Swiss court later sentenced him to five years in prison in 2018 on charges of fraud and forgery, Swiss media reported. Lescaudron died by suicide in 2020.
The bank told AFP it “rejects all the allegations”.
“Credit Suisse was recognised as the aggrieved party by all criminal authorities seized with this matter,” it said in a statement.
The latest case comes after a Bermuda judge ruled in March that Ivanishvili suffered a loss of USD553 million because of failures by a Credit Suisse affiliate in Bermuda.
The ruling said the Credit Suisse affiliate did not prevent Lescaudron’s fraud because “it was prioritising the revenues Lescaudron generated for Credit Suisse over the interests of its clients”.
