Finance

Report: Credit Suisse Ignored Early Warnings About Greensill Partnership

JUN 13 2025·Updated JUN 15 2025

Story

Above: Greensill Capital UK Ltd. CEO Lex Greensill in London, U.K., on June 9, 2025. Image credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Facts

Credit Suisse executives reportedly received anonymous warnings as early as 2018 questioning their partnership with Greensill Capital, three years before the 2021 collapse that contributed to the Swiss bank's demise in March 2023. The warnings raised concerns about the bank's strategy of packaging Greensill's loans into $10 billion worth of investable funds for wealthy clients.
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guardian
Swiss regulator Finma found that Credit Suisse "breached its regulatory obligations" and "naively" relied on Greensill to defend their partnership, causing "immense reputational damage" to the bank. It determined that inquiries about metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta and Greensill were "sometimes" wrongly answered by Credit Suisse executives.
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Finma found that Credit Suisse hired private investigations firm Diligence in 2018 to produce a report on Gupta's GFG Alliance due to growing liquidity concerns, which raised red flags, including allegations of undisclosed related-party transactions and suspected "carousel fraud."
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Credit Suisse executives also allegedly were unclear about Greensill's financing of "future receivables" — invoices for hypothetical deals. When flagged by an employee in April 2020, a senior employee dismissed concerns, citing a chat with Lex Greensill, to which the subordinate questioned the matter.
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This comes amid a London High Court case where Credit Suisse is suing SoftBank for $440 million over losses tied to Greensill Capital's collapse, focusing on transactions with SoftBank-backed Katerra. Lex Greensill testified about a "code of silence" surrounding the disputed arrangement and described Katerra's 2020 restructuring as "painful."
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The Times (UK)
Greensill's collapse led Credit Suisse to shutter $10 billion in funds, leaving over 1,000 wealthy clients with massive losses and damaging the bank’s reputation. UBS, now the owner of Credit Suisse, is still chasing repayments and managing the legal fallout.
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guardian

Sources Split

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The Spin

Narrative A

Credit Suisse's $440 million lawsuit against SoftBank exposes Greensill's corrupt, opaque loan schemes, hiding risky claims. That said, Credit Suisse is also at fault, as Finma found it clearly breached risk oversight and ignored years of warnings. The senior manager involved should have nipped this in the bud before it turned into a $10 billion fund collapse.

Barrons

Narrative B

Credit Suisse's lawsuit against SoftBank and Greensill's collapse reveal not just their own corruption, but the rotten banking system as a whole. While Finma exposed Credit Suisse's failure to protect people's money, it also proved complete systemic rot, as shown by the bank's $510 million fine for hiding $4 billion offshore. U.S. Security and Exchange Committee waivers for UBS prove big banks escape justice, protected by their size and influence.