Credit Suisse Case – GJN supports an Alliance of European Law firms
April 2023. GJN is advising firms that are having a closer look from a legal perspective on the consequences of the recent Credit Suisse case.
Constantine Kokkinos of the European Legal Consultancy (ELC) Law Firm based in Zurich is the lead counsel of an international consortium of lawyers with high level expertise in financial law as well as in class and mass actions.
European Legal Consultancy leads the inquiry according to Swiss law in the Credit Suisse case with the support of its international partners.
Another expert from GJN is Geert Lenssens of SQ-WATT, a highly trained Brussels-based (Belgium) lawyer who successfully represented multiple clients in separate financial claims against Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Fortis Bank, each of them leading to important settlements. Today Mr. Lenssens is also member of a lawyers team representing a consumer foundation in the Volkswagen case and of a group of clients in the PFAS case against 3M.
Other GJN specialists supporting this investigation are Gerard Rudden of ARQ Solicitors in Dublin (Ireland), Carlos Villacorta of the Madrid-based (Spain) BCVLEX, a well-known litigation law firm, and by Stefano Bertone from Turin’s (Italy) Ambrosio & Commodo.
European Legal Consultancy and its GJN allied experts will focus their research on contractual as well as statutory issues arising out of the recent Credit Suisse takeover for AT1 bondholders and for small and medium stockholders alike. Additionally they are set to examine potential third party liabilities in the transaction including, but not limited to, individual decision makers, and consequences for shareholders and investors, both from criminal law and civil law perspectives.
Constantine Kokkinos comments: “We are aware of other legal initiatives in the Credit Suisse case but we see that there still is a high demand for specific information on the litigation as well as to the alternatives to litigation such as mediation and other forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution. We believe that amongst the victims of the Credit Suisse tragedy are not only the big and smaller AT1 bondholders who have been discriminated against, but also all types of shareholders. The strong image of Switzerland as a world financial center has, in our opinion, also suffered serious damage from these events.”.
Geert Lenssens adds: “ I will be delighted to assist the Swiss team as an expert in their inquiry . The whole financial world was shocked by the way the AT1 bondholders were left without value and the stockholders were given a kind of consolation prize. It all reminds me of the FORTIS case in Belgium after the credit crunch crisis in 2008 which lead to a 1,3 billion settlement. In my opinion I can also see a possible conflict with section 6 of the European Convention for Human Rights (ECHR) ratified by Switzerland in 1974.
The experts alliance will start their pre-examination now and intend to complete their investigation soon. They plan to make their findings accessible to interested bondholders and shareholders in view of evaluating the current situation and the possibility to undertake legal actions
As a matter of course, this mere announcement should not lead to any conclusions on potential liabilities or remedies. Furthermore it only expresses personal opinions of the members involved.