At the end of April, António Horta-Osório moved to the top of the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse.

Since then, the Portuguese with a British passport has carried his most important message into the country at every opportunity: The major Swiss bank, shaken by numerous reputable and costly scandals, must regain trust and urgently need a cultural change.

From now on, every employee in the company must be a risk manager.

Johannes Ritter

Correspondent for politics and business in Switzerland.

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For him personally, however, this requirement obviously does not apply.

The former head of the Lloyds Banking Group, whom Queen Elisabeth knighted for his services to the British economy and who has since been allowed to prefix his name with a "Sir", has violated Swiss quarantine regulations and thus not only exposed people to potential risk , but also accepted a (further) serious reputational risk for the entire bank.

With the company jet to New York

On November 28th, Horta-Osório flew from his former home in London to Zurich. At that time, due to the Omikron variant in Switzerland, quarantine was mandatory for travelers from Great Britain. The 57-year-old banker should have gone into domestic isolation for ten days after arriving. He did this at first. Horta-Osório retired to his house in the tax-favorable canton of Schwyz and from there took part in several virtual meetings. But then he tried to "free" himself from the quarantine in his own four walls by granting an exception. According to a report in the newspaper "Blick", he had a confidante sound out, first at the cantonal and then at the federal level, whether he should not be allowed to leave the house after all. But the authorities resolutely fended off the request.

Nevertheless, the manager left his house on December 1 and flew in the Credit Suisse corporate jet first to Portugal and then on to New York for a board meeting.

By breaking the quarantine rules, Horta-Osório violated the Swiss Epidemics Act.

As a spokesman for the bank confirmed on request, the Chairman of the Board of Directors has now reported himself.

The Swiss Financial Market Authority (Finma) and the Board of Directors were also informed of the incident.

Internally, the horror is great: "Something like that must not happen," said a CS manager of the FAZ

Inadvertently violating quarantine regulations

Officially, the bank said: "Credit Suisse regrets that the quarantine regulations have been violated in connection with the travel activities of its President." Compliance with the applicable laws and guidelines is a top priority for the bank and its President . Horta-Osório claims in the press release that he unintentionally violated Swiss quarantine regulations. “I sincerely regret this mistake. I apologize and will see to it that this does not happen again. "

The behavior of the President is sure to spark discussion in the Bank's Board of Directors.

There is also criticism from outside.

The Swiss lawyer Monika Roth, who specializes in compliance and good corporate governance in the financial sector, says that Horta-Osório must now resign.

The CS could not afford such behavior from its president, said Roth in "Blick".

Just the fact that Horta-Osório wanted to obtain a special permit says a lot about his attitude.