Credit Suisse chairman to get warning on quarantine breaks

Zurich

CREDIT Suisse Group chairman Antonio Horta-Osorio is likely to receive a warning, rather than a dismissal, from the bank's board of directors after a probe into his repeated violations of quarantine rules last year, Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger reported.

The bank's board of directors is expected to publicly issue a reproach of Horta-Osorio's conduct in the coming weeks, the newspaper daily said, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the matter. The Portuguese banker was found to have breached Swiss and UK quarantine rules during the course of last year. A spokeswoman for Credit Suisse declined to comment on the matter.

Horta-Osorio was forced to apologise for "unintentionally" breaking Swiss quarantine rules in November by flying to the Iberian peninsula aboard a private jet.

Weeks later, a report by Reuters revealed that the chairman had also breached rules while attending the Wimbledon tennis finals in London in early July, a period when arrivals from Europe were obliged to undergo a period of quarantine.

Horta-Osorio, who was appointed as chairman in April, has been trying to steer Zurich-based Credit Suisse past a disastrous year when the collapse of Archegos Capital Management and the freezing of funds tied to Greensill Capital caused billions of dollars in losses and led to the departure of numerous senior managers.

The chairman has repeatedly cited the need to revamp the bank's culture with a focus on individual responsibility. BLOOMBERG