Credit Suisse takes on politics
The bank plans to pay out bonuses to its staff this week as planned. Signals from Parliament and the Federal Council indicate that politicians do not appreciate this.
Although Credit Suisse (CS) has maneuvered itself and thus the entire Swiss financial center into a difficult situation, the employees are to receive their bonuses as planned. These often performance-related payments are to be paid out next Friday. This emerges from an internal message to the employees, about which the economic information service Bloomberg reported. CS confirms the facts.
The bank is thus taking a confrontational course with politicians. Parliamentarians from various parties are already clamoring for no more bonuses to be paid as a result of the mess that has been created. And this concern of Parliament also seems to be met with goodwill in the state government.
On Sunday evening, Federal Councilor Karin Keller-Sutter told the media that the federal government could not prevent bonuses from being paid out. The Ausserrhoden Council of States Andrea Caroni reacted to this immediately on Twitter, where he questioned the finance minister’s statement: Since the federal government is providing “indirect aid” with a loss guarantee, it can certainly influence bonuses.
In fact, Karin Keller-Sutter then changed her attitude. So she told Radio SRF on Monday morning that the federal government could take measures regarding wages. A dividend ban is also possible. “That is a matter for the supervisory authority, but it can be assumed.” The competent authority is the Financial Market Authority (Finma). In other words: Federal Councilor Karin Keller-Sutter assumes that there will be restrictions on bonuses, among other things. Your finance department did not want to comment further on request.
FINMA is only reluctant to comment on this when asked: The first step in the past few days was to find a solution to protect bank customers. “In the second step, we will clarify further questions.” This also includes the payment of bonuses.
No severance pay
It has been known for a long time that the CS management received no bonuses for the past year. As the bank confirms on request, no severance pay will be paid to CS boss Ulrich Körner or to the chairman of the board of directors, Alex Lehmann.
The Credit Suisse media office does not want to comment on questions about the dividend payment. The Board of Directors originally proposed to the Annual General Meeting on April 4 that a dividend of 5 centimes per share be distributed. In all likelihood, the CS Board of Directors will have to correct this application anyway. Because the solution decided by the Federal Council, authorities and banks already contains a ban on dividends. This emerges from the explanatory report on the ordinance that the Federal Council implemented by emergency law.
The prospect of bonus cuts is likely to weigh further on sentiment among CS employees. Many have already suffered losses because they own shares in their own bank, which have lost considerable value. Credit Suisse does not disclose how many shares are owned by employees.
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