Ex-Credit Suisse worker sentenced

A Swiss court has sentenced a former Credit Suisse employee to a suspended jail sentence of two years for stealing confidential client data from the bank.

The information was then passed on to German officials investigating tax evasion.

The former employee, who had confessed to the theft, received two years’ probation instead of jail time, and a fine of SFr3,500 ($3,720) for breaching Swiss banking secrecy, the court said on Thursday.

His sentencing brings to an end criminal proceedings linked to the theft in 2008 of up to 2,500 sets of data on Credit Suisse clients from the bank.

According to the indictment, the plan to steal data took shape after the employee accidentally left a briefcase of client data in the gym where both he and the man who would later become his accomplice worked out. 

The accomplice, who Swiss authorities believe developed the scheme to sell the data to Germany, was found dead in his Swiss prison cell just over a year ago in an apparent suicide.

Prosecutors alleged the former employee abused his position at the bank to search for data on wealthy Germans who hid assets from the tax authorities in secret Swiss accounts, recording detailed information on the clients in long hand.

Credit Suisse, which in September paid a fine of €150 million ($185 million) to end the German investigation sparked by the data theft, said it was glad the thief had received a criminal sentence.