Page 1 of 2

Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam's integrity and the bank's reputation are still intact after a bumbled spy scheme: Chairman Urs Rohner is plying a return to normal. It's not that simple, says finews.com editor Peter Hody.

His surprise media briefing on Tuesday was vintage Urs Rohner. The Credit Suisse chairman took just 32 minutes of clinical, sharp, clear-eyed persuasion to make his case to the roughly 20 journalists on hand that the Swiss bank isn't in the midst of one biggest scandals in the recent history of Swiss banking.

In half an hour, Rohner described a bumbled Paradeplatz surveillance scheme on Iqbal Khan, who was defecting to rival UBS, the results of an investigation by white-collar law firm Homburger, and the consequences: operating boss Pierre-Olivier Bouée fell on his sword, and Credit Suisse's security chief will also leave.

Rohner conceded that the skullduggery was wrong and not in keeping with Credit Suisse's values. He shielded CEO Tidjane Thiam: the executive's integrity remains intact and he enjoys full board backing.

Round of Apologies

Rohner, formerly a brilliant litigator, also admitted that Credit Suisse's reputation had taken a major ding and he apologized: to Khan's family, as well as to the family of an external security consultant to Credit Suisse who, reportedly distraught over the public fallout from the scandal, died by suicide last week.

He left it to director John Tiner, who ran the British regulator before the financial crisis, to detail the Homburger findings made public on Tuesday. Rohner, Tiner, and Homburger lawyer Flavio Romerio took some media questions before disappearing.

Doubts Remain

The end? If Rohner, Credit Suisse's board, CEO Thiam, and Homburger's Romerio had their way – yes, certainly. The Khan surveillance scandal is cleared up, the bank took countermeasures, roundly apologized, and backed its CEO.

It's not that simple though: a host of questions and doubts remain over how much transparency Rohner – not an impartial observer to this whole mess – and the board are prepared to bring to the matter.

Defector's Fear

Homburger's mandate appears to have been delineated so strictly so as not to wander into what exactly Thiam and Khan fell out over – meaning, we don't know why Credit Suisse felt it necessary to hire a private detective to shadow the departing banker.