Credit Suisse fraud case: US judge moves towards private review of FINMA files

A New York judge has taken a step towards privately inspecting Swiss regulatory files on Credit Suisse’s collapse, after Switzerland’s financial watchdog declined to appear at a hearing on whether investors should get access to them. The 24 September order turns a long-running document dispute into a test of how far a US court can probe material that FINMA says is protected by Swiss supervisory secrecy.

Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave told Credit Suisse Group AG to explain, as soon as practicable, how it would submit the disputed records to the court for an in camera review. She also invited short written submissions from lead plaintiff Professor Ali Diabat by 2 October and from the bank by 9 October. The judge has not ruled that the documents must be handed to the investors.

The report at the centre of the dispute

Among the records FINMA says are covered is a report it commissioned from Swiss law firm Wenger Plattner on “Crisis Management by Credit Suisse”. According to an earlier Swiss supervisory order attached to the new US filing, the review examined the period from January 2022 to 12 June 2023, spanning the loss of confidence in the bank, its emergency takeover by UBS and the subsequent legal merger. Reuters reported the existence of the inquiry in 2024; the report itself is not disclosed in the 24 September court filing.

FINMA’s US counsel, Mark G. Hanchet of Mayer Brown, set out the watchdog’s position in a letter dated 23 September that Cave appended to her order. FINMA says a case-specific directive issued in October 2025 protects the Wenger Plattner report, UBS’s comments on it and communications arising from the supervisory relationship. It says the directive remains in force until at least 31 December 2027 and may be extended. These are FINMA’s claims about the scope and effect of Swiss law; the New York court has not adopted them as a ruling.

A regulator speaks without appearing

Cave had directed FINMA’s US counsel to attend the 24 September telephone conference. No FINMA lawyer joined, the judge recorded. In its letter, the watchdog said it was not a party to the litigation or subject to the court’s jurisdiction and would not negotiate directly with the plaintiff. That jurisdictional assertion is FINMA’s position. The order records the absence but imposes no sanction.

FINMA argues that the confidentiality right belongs to the regulator, so UBS cannot waive it on the regulator’s behalf. It cites Article 42c(5) of Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervision Act and warns that disclosure contrary to its directive could prompt Swiss supervisory measures. The bank and the investors are now being asked to address the consequences of that position in a US discovery proceeding.

There is a narrower point in FINMA’s own paperwork. Its 2025 directive says pre-existing internal bank documents do not become protected supervisory records merely by being submitted to FINMA. The public filing does not establish which, if any, of the contested records fit that description. The distinction could matter when the judge examines specific documents rather than treating the entire file as a single category.

Why the case matters, and what it does not decide

Diabat’s securities class action concerns alleged misleading statements about Credit Suisse’s condition before its 2023 collapse. A July 2025 decision certified a class covering American depositary shares, seven specified notes and options on the shares. The contents of a crisis-management review could, in principle, bear on the timing of what the bank or its supervisors knew. That is an inference about possible relevance, not a finding about what the unreleased report says or whether the investors’ allegations are true.

The 24 September order explicitly relates to Diabat. A separate case led by Core Capital concerns investors in Credit Suisse’s Additional Tier 1 bonds. The cases have been joined for pretrial work but remain distinct claims under the court’s ruling. Antigua News has covered the earlier FINMA privilege dispute and a separate AT1 lawsuit; this discovery order does not decide whether the AT1 write-down was lawful.

The immediate test comes in the 2 and 9 October letters. Credit Suisse must also propose a route for the judge to inspect the documents confidentially, and the parties owe a joint update on factual discovery by 2 November. Even if an in camera review goes ahead, it would give the court access for its own assessment; it would not, by itself, make the files public or available to investors.