Legal
Credit Suisse Resolves Archegos Case
As an aside to the losses, the Archegos affair also led to calls for single-family offices to be regulated. Archegos, headquartered in New York, had been structured as a SFO.
Credit Suisse – now UBS’s subsidiary – has agreed to pay $269 million to US authorities and $119 million to those in the UK to resolve matters linked to its relationship with the failed New York-based hedge fund/family office Archegos Capital Management.
The bank has inked a resolution with the US Federal Reserve System and the UK Prudential Regulation Authority. It also said Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority proceedings related to Credit Suisse’s relationship with Archegos have been concluded.
Losses that Credit Suisse sustained by exposure to Archegos in 2021 – other banks were also hit, but not as severely – were among a number of mishaps that hurt the Swiss lender, eventually leading to a slide in its share price. UBS, at the behest of the Swiss federal government, agreed to buy Switzerland’s second-largest bank in the spring of this year. As a result, UBS is working through a backlog of legal and regulatory issues at Credit Suisse.
Following the settlements, Credit Suisse will record an additional provision in its second quarter 2023 financial statements to reflect these resolutions. UBS Group AG will reflect the provision in purchase accounting for the acquisition of Credit Suisse, which was completed on June 12, 2023, UBS said in a statement yesterday.
The Federal Reserve and FINMA have imposed remedial requirements relating to credit, liquidity and non-financial risk management, as well as oversight of remedial efforts.
UBS said it will implement its operational and risk management discipline and its culture across the combined organization.
The Archegos affair led to calls for single-family offices – as Archegos was structured as one – to be more tightly regulated, leading to pushback from the family offices industry.