Credit Suisse

JPMorgan, Microsoft, Intel, Accenture PLC and a large consortium of major players in tech and banking, including Credit Suisse, UBS, Bank of New York Mellon and Thomson Reuters, have joined hands to establish the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), a new group dedicated to developing Ethereum into an enterprise-grade Blockchain platform.

The alliance connects Fortune 500 enterprises, startups, academics and technology suppliers with Ethereum subject matter experts to learn from and build upon Ethereum and to define standards for enterprise-grade implementations.

Swiss banking organization Credit Suisse is under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for helping Americans living in Israel or with Israeli citizenship to evade taxes, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Less than three years after Credit Suisse Group paid billions and pleaded guilty to aiding tax evasion through its desk serving US clients.

The investigation focuses on the bank’s Israeli desk, which has hundreds of clients. The US Justice Department in July 2014 discovered US professor Dan Horsky, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was potentially hiding money overseas in his Credit Suisse accounts managed by the bank’s Israel desk. The dual citizen cooperated with the government, gathering recordings and other evidence that firmly placed the bank as a major funnel through which money held by American citizens was being hidden. The culprit received a seven-month sentence in prison.

Credit Suisse has reported a net loss of 2.347 billion Swiss francs ($2.337 billion) for the fourth quarter of 2016 as the bank felt the impact of a $5.28 billion fine from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The fine in December stems from the bank’s sale of toxic mortgage assets in the lead up to the 2008 global financial crisis and brings an end to a "major source of uncertainty" for the bank, according to Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam. It said Tuesday it recorded a provision of approximately $2 billion during the fourth quarter of 2016 for this penalty, in addition to existing provisions of $550 million in prior periods.

Credit Suisse is exploring options for expanding in Dublin, as the UK moves closer to exiting the European Union, according to a report from Bloomberg.

It is believed Dublin is emerging as a favoured location for the bank’s so-called back-office jobs. The Zurich-based bank is also understood to be considering cities including Frankfurt as it develops plans for moving jobs to adapt to Brexit, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Credit Suisse board member Noreen Doyle said in Dublin earlier this week that the bank is in the "early stages" of examining alternatives to the UK as it plans for Brexit’s implications.

Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Wednesday that Credit Suisse will pay $5.28 billion in the settlement, which relates to the packaging, securitization, issuance, marketing and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities between 2005 and 2007. Credit Suisse announced in late December that it reached a settlement in principle with the DOJ which made it official.

Under the terms of the settlement, Credit Suisse will pay $2.48 billion as a civil penalty under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act.

Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam sees market conditions improving during 2017 as the bank’s reorganization gathers pace and its efficiency drive continues.

Thiam told Bloomberg TV in an interview from Davos on Tuesday that "After a year in 2016 where you saw revenues really go down (across the sector)…hopefully 2017 will be better but all this is markets permitting," he said.

"We have seen across the world the benefits of globalization…but we have also seen the tensions. The cracks in the system which then found a political translation," said the CEO of Switzerland’s second-largest bank.

Eight men now own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world. A top corporate CEO earns as much in a year as 10,000 garment factory workers in Bangladesh. And the world’s 10 biggest corporations together have revenue greater than the 180 poorest countries combined, according to a study published Sunday by Oxfam.

The charity’s report, "An economy for the 99%", was released as global leaders and the business elite traveled to Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum; it suggests the wealth gap is wider than ever, with new data for China and India indicating that the poorest half of the world owns less than previously estimated.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the sale of $850 million in bonds issued by Mozambique by Credit Suisse, Russia’s VTB Group and BNP Paribas, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The southern African nation in October said its debt was unsustainable and the International Monetary Fund suspended assistance to Mozambique when evidence of $2 billion in secret loans emerged.

The bonds were sold in 2013 to finance a Mozambican state-owned firm’s plans to develop tuna fishing in the impoverished nation, but the government later said it had also bought military equipment with the funds.
The probe opens a new chapter in a scandal of hidden debts which has rocked Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries, for months.

The SEC in November asked bondholders for documents provided by Credit Suisse, VTB and BNP Paribas during the sale of the bonds, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a letter sent to bondholders.

The letter also asked investors to share with the SEC all communications with the banks related to the bonds.