Credit Suisse CEO exonerated once again as Bouee takes fall

Bloomberg

Credit Suisse Group AG blamed Pierre-Olivier Bouee for a second spying scandal that’s shaken the bank, again painting the former chief operating officer (COO) as a rogue operative who kept chief executive officer Tidjane Thiam in the dark about his activities.
Bouee — once a close confidante of Thiam — used a contractor to spy on former human resources head Peter Goerke and, along with his staff, took care to hide any internal evidence of the surveillance, according to a statement from Credit Suisse on Monday. There was “no indication” other members of the board knew about the spying.
Credit Suisse is struggling to emerge from one of the most damaging periods in its recent history after spying on former international wealth management head Iqbal Khan led to a confrontation between him and the men sent to follow him in downtown Zurich. The incident exposed a deep rift between Thiam and Khan that had worsened over previous months and the methods used by the bank to protect its business.
In the aftermath of the Khan incident, Credit Suisse hired Homburger, a blue-chip Swiss law firm, to investigate the spying and said that Bouee had acted alone in what Thiam at the time called an isolated event. Chairman Urs Rohner told the public that staff surveillance was not “part of our toolbox.”
In the meantime, others have stepped forward to say they also have been followed. Colleen Graham, who headed up a joint venture between Credit Suisse and Palantir Technologies Inc, has also alleged the bank took retaliatory measures against her — including surveillance — after she had refused to sign off on how revenue from the joint-venture would be booked.
In a September 25 email to Thiam and Rohner, which also went to board member John Tiner and was seen by Bloomberg, Graham — whose case dates from 2017 — describes being followed in the US from the “lobby of my lawyer’s office into a pharmacy several blocks away and to the building where I was interviewing” at BlackRock. Graham spotted the same woman, she wrote, in a black Range Rover on Long Island. Her obvious presence indicated “the woman wanted me to know she was following me.”
Credit Suisse shares fell about 0.6% as of 9:05 a.m. in Zurich and are up about 24% this year.
In following Khan, Credit Suisse was probably concerned that he may take hard-to-replace wealth managers with him to his new employer UBS Group AG. The reasons for the surveillance of Goerke seem less clear. The executive was followed for a period of several days in February with the help of a contractor. Credit Suisse has apologised.
“The observation of Peter Goerke, which has now been confirmed, is inexcusable,” Rohner said in the statement.