Documents of parliamentary inquiry into the collapse of Credit Suisse will be classified for 50 years

Documents collected during an investigation into the collapse of Credit Suisse by a commission of the Swiss parliament will be classified for 50 years for confidentiality reasons. Reuters. Typically, such documents are out of the public domain in Switzerland for 30 years.

Recall that bank Credit Suisse has experienced corporate scandals and financial problems for many years and, by the end of 2022, received the most significant loss since the crisis year of 2008 – $ 7.9 billion. Amid the banking crisis in the United States in March 2023, Credit Suisse shares collapsed by 30%, and he turned to the Swiss National Bank for help. That accepted solution on the merger of troubled Credit Suisse with UBS. The parliamentary investigation will focus not on the actions of Credit Suisse itself, but on the actions of the Swiss government, the financial regulator and the Swiss National Bank in the period leading up to the collapse of the bank. The parliamentary committee has the authority to summon cabinet members, representatives of ministries and departments to testify. At the same time, the committee stressed that all interviews would be held strictly confidential, the content of the meetings should not be disclosed either by the committee members themselves or by those who would testify. After the investigation is completed, the committee will transfer the collected data to the Federal Archives for 50 years of storage.

Representatives of the Swiss Historical Society have already expressed their concern that these documents will not be available for study. According to the president of this organization, Sasha Tsala, it is important that these documents be opened, because historians can study the banking crisis of 2023 and these documents “may be invaluable.” “Ideally, it should be possible to provide access to this archive after a certain period, if necessary, for scientific research,” the expert believes. Meanwhile, the parliamentary committee believes that the disclosure of such data harms the investigation, undermines the credibility of the work of the committee, and also “may have negative consequences for the financial center of Switzerland.”

Alena Miklashevskaya