UBS Wins Dismissal of Credit Suisse Money-Laundering Charges Tied to Mozambique Tuna Bond Scandal

(Bloomberg) — UBS Group AG won dismissal of a money-laundering case it inherited from its troubled former rival Credit Suisse linked to the so-called Mozambique tuna-bond scandal.

Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court ruled on April 8 that UBS couldn’t be held liable for alleged wrongdoing in the affair, which dates back years before its government-brokered takeover of Credit Suisse in 2023.

“Transferring criminal liability to UBS, coupled with its conviction and the payment of a fine as a criminal penalty, would violate the principle of culpability” and run contrary to both the Swiss constitution and European Convention on Human Rights, the court said in a statement released on Friday.

UBS said that it welcomes “the court’s recognition” that it “cannot be held liable in this matter, as such liability cannot be transferred to a legal successor through a merger.”

In October, 2023, UBS reached a separate settlement with Mozambique over Credit Suisse’s role in the scandal. That agreement brought a close to a London case that began a decade ago when Credit Suisse first financed the construction of a new coastal patrol force and tuna fishing fleet for Mozambique.

Credit Suisse had already agreed in 2021 to pay almost $475 million to resolve multiple investigations around the world into its role in the scandal, where Mozambique alleged the Swiss bank ignored red flags and the corruption of its own bankers in deals struck as part of $2 billion worth of bond deals.

But Swiss prosecutors continued building a separate case, culminating in a December indictment of the bank, when it was charged with failing to prevent suspected money laundering of service fees linked to the suspicious loans. Under Swiss law, a company can be criminally charged for failing to prevent crimes such as money-laundering, a statute that Swiss prosecutors have used with growing success in recent years.

The case against a former Credit Suisse compliance officer, also indicted in December, will continue, the court said on Friday. The person was aware that so-called “running fees” paid from Mozambique into Credit Suisse accounts could be linked to probable bribes, according to the prosecutors.

But rather than filing a suspicious activity report to the Money Laundering Reporting Office of Switzerland, the person chose to terminate the commercial relationship, prosecutors said. It was not until 2019 that Credit Suisse filed a report after the US Department of Justice announced it was conducting criminal proceedings into the scandal.

The Attorney-General’s Office of Switzerland has 10 days to appeal the federal criminal court’s decision.

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