Tailed in Zurich: How the Credit Suisse spy drama unfolded
Not many employees start their first day in the new job with a spying scandal hanging over their head.
But so it is for Iqbal Khan, the star banker who began life at UBS today against a backdrop of car chases, cocktail party bust-ups and private investigations.
While it may read like the plot of a John Le Carre novel, the drama has in fact been unfolding inside the typically sedate world of Swiss finance.
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How did it start?
It began last month when prosecutors opened a probe into Credit Suisse’s hiring of private detectives to shadow Khan, the firm’s former head of wealth management who left to join arch-rival UBS.
The seven-day spying operation, which was sparked by fears that Khan might poach fellow employers to join him in his new role at UBS, came to light after Khan noticed he was being trailed while out on a shopping trip with his wife.
After being chased through Zurich’s quiet business district Khan reportedly stepped out of his car and started to take photos of the license plate of the private investigator’s vehicle.
The investigator then allegedly told Khan to stop taking photos and hand over his phone, before Khan started to shout for police and the private eye left.
Khan’s frosty relationship with Credit Suisse CEO
Thiam himself was cleared of any responsibility, but the fallout has thrown a new spotlight on the chief executive and his frosty relationship with Khan.
While the pair started off on good terms, a personal animosity between the two is said to have developed. Tensions escalated when Khan bought and built up a house neighbouring Thiam’s in the wealthy exclusive suburb of the so-called “gold coast” by Lake Zurich.
Rows about the developments spilled over at a cocktail party in Thiam’s house, reportedly ending in a heated argument about a row of trees that the Credit Suisse boss had planted on his property.
The saga also took on a darker tone in recent days following the news that a consultant who helped Credit Suisse organise the surveillance died in an apparent suicide, with Credit Suisse chairman Urs Rohner expressing regret yesterday over the man’s death.
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Has it hurt Credit Suisse’s reputation?
Khan’s versions of events appears to differ markedly from the report by Investigo, the corporate intelligence firm hired to snoop on the banking heavyweight.
Yet regardless of the truth behind the confrontation, the unprecedented espionage has rocked the reputation of Credit Suisse.
Yesterday the firm’s chief operating officer Pierre-Olivier Bouee, a long-time colleague of Credit Suisse’s boss, Tidjane Thiam, stepped down after claiming responsibility for the probe.
Switzerland might be famed for its discretion, but this episode of spats, suicide and spying has left the country’s second largest lender facing – in its own words – “severe reputation damage”.
As Khan moves down the road to start work in his new job, both he and his rivals will be hoping to pull down the curtain on one of the most extraordinary corporate tales of recent times.