Credit Suisse says it has paid $210 million to date to billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili in a long-running legal saga.
The bank has paid in the sum "over time for the proceedings across all the plaintiff's accounts," a spokesperson for the Swiss lender said by email.
The statement is the most detailed admission yet of how much the legal wrangling is costing Credit Suisse globally and emerged amid closing arguments at a two-day hearing in Singapore, which will mark the end of a trial that began in September.
Georgian tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili sued the bank's trust unit for $800 million in damages and lost income he said he would have made over the years if his money had been safely invested. Patrice Lescaudron was convicted in 2018 for fraud over a scheme he ran to take money from Ivanishvili's accounts to cover growing losses among other clients' portfolios.
Credit Suisse Trust has consistently argued that its responsibility was limited to administration of the assets belonging to Bidzina Ivanishvili and that it was the tycoon, or his Georgian business adviser, who called the shots on investment decisions and should be liable for any losses. Lescaudron was a lone wolf who hid his crimes from colleagues, according to the bank.
Lee Eng Beng, a lawyer for the trust, conceded on Thursday that Credit Suisse agreed to compensate Ivanishvili for failing to "police the perimeter" of his wealth from theft by Lescaudron from the end of 2008 onward.
There is "a duty to compensate for that loss," he said in his closing arguments, as he sought to limit any broader fallout. "The duty does not extend to any liability for any losses from investment activity in relation to the assets managed in the trust account," he added.
Bermuda Ruling
The stakes for the Singapore trial are high. Ivanishvili in March won a $607 million judgment from a Bermuda court, which ruled a local Credit Suisse life insurance unit there had turned a "blind eye" to Lescaudron's fraud. CS Life is appealing that decision.
Separate negotiations between the two sides appear to have stalled, according to a
Representatives for Credit Suisse and Ivanishvili declined to comment ahead of the hearing.
Cavinder Bull, Ivanishvili's lawyer, called out in his closing arguments the clear inconsistencies from the testimony of CS Trust employees that were troubling and meant they knew more than they were letting on.
Bull said in court that Credit Suisse has paid $79 million to Ivanishvilli in the Singapore trial, a figure confirmed by a Credit Suisse spokesperson, who declined to comment further on whether it was part of the broader $210 million paid to the billionaire.
"CS Trust has run its defense in a totally dishonest manner, they have instructed their lawyer to dispute things they knew were true," said Bull. Its own witnesses have said things that contradict the trust's version of events and even "their own affidavits" he continued, stressing that these were employees running the trust at the time.
"There's no way that the trust did not know."
—With assistance from Chanyaporn Chanjaroen and Ambereen Choudhury.
