The nomination a month ago of Guy Lachappelle as new Raiffeisen president looked to be a formality. A ten-year old fraud cause may throw a spanner in the works.
Just days after his nomination as board chairman of Raiffeisen Schweiz, Guy Lachapelle appears relaxed at a banking event. Then still-CEO of Basler Kantonalbank, Lachappelle said it wasn’t just the challenges of managing a crisis that attracted him. Raiffeisen is an interesting bank with a widespread client network.
He had already as CEO led the local government backed-controlled Basel bank out of a crisis, but couldn’t judge how deep the crisis at Raiffeisen was. His goal as a strategist and manager will be to bring new goals and visions to Raiffeisen, Lachapelle said ahead of his election on November 10.
Shadow of the Past
This no longer seems certain. Headhunter Guido Schilling, the nomination committee of Raiffeisen as well as Swiss regulator Finma have underestimated a shadow from his past.
It relates to his role in the scandal surrounding the asset manager ASE, whose snowball system defrauded clients of millions of Swiss francs, and utilized the Basler bank as a custodian.
The scandal looks to haunt Lachappelle today: several member banks of the cooperatively-organized institute plan to oppose his election as chairman of Raiffeisen Switzerland, «Aargauer Zeitung» (in German) reported, citing anonymous sources with bank representatives.
Fraud Case
Some Raiffeisen representatives are angered that Lachappelle seems poised to earn more than the nearly 500,000 Swiss francs ($504,000) per year than his predecessor, Johannes Rueegg-Stuerm, took home.
But the ASE fraud case weighs more heavily than sentiment about pay: Switzerland's finance department won the right to view sealed documents relating to the case, through a Swiss court decision last month.
Talking Tour
As CEO of the cantonal bank, Lachappelle is fighting for the files to remain sealed by appealing to Switzerland's highest court. The newspaper writes that the 57-year-old failed to tell two Raiffeisen regional heads that the ASE case would continue.
For their part, some Raiffeisen representatives are calling for Lachappelle to withdraw his candidacy and for the bank to propose another chairman. Meanwhile, Raiffeisen's headquarters and Lachappelle personally are embarking on a goodwill tour: the designated chairman visited six member banks that are crucial to his nomination to talk about the ASE case. All representatives were said to have backed Lachappelle.
