Credit Suisse terminated his contract Sept. 22, 2015, according to its December complaint.
After the margin calls, Ivanishvili hired Geneva law firm Lalive to pore through his statements and demand missing account records from the bank for his own probe of where his money had gone.
On Dec. 21, his lawyers filed their complaint against the banker for criminal mismanagement, forgery and misappropriation, in which they also chronicled evidence of what they said was Credit Suisse’s foot-dragging in producing account records.
‘Churning’ Accounts
A month later, the Lalive team alleged in another filing with prosecutors that the fraud went far beyond the banker as the bank conducted unnecessary transactions through the accounts to generate millions in excess commissions and fees -- “churning.”
In early December and again in January, Credit Suisse discussed settling the case with Ivanishvili’s representatives, but the two sides couldn’t agree on compensation, according to people familiar with the talks.
Ivanishvili’s lawyers wrote in the Dec. 21 filing that the losses are estimated in the “multiple hundreds of millions of dollars,” but more data are needed to compile a precise estimate.
“This type of management, catastrophic and leading inevitably to enormous losses for its clients, could not have been achieved without the help of multiple departments at the core of the bank, as well as by the participation, active or passive, or at least with the full knowledge, of numerous people,” his lawyers wrote in a filing with prosecutors on Jan. 27.
Less than a month later, the two Russian clients went one step further, filing criminal complaints against the banker for criminal mismanagement, misappropriation and forgery, that also named the bank. They both allege senior bank executives encouraged the banker to conceal the huge losses suffered on the Meinl deal as far back as 2007. One of the clients hired private investigators to probe the losses.
In its Dec. 23 filing with prosecutors, Credit Suisse confirmed the banker transferred funds from Ivanishvili’s accounts to those of the Russian clients without permission, but said it was still investigating their other allegations. “It seems difficult at this point to determine if [he] acted alone or with a third party,” the bank said.