Credit Suisse Reviews Handling of 2010 Assault Allegation

(Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group AG said it's reviewing how it handled an allegation that a male employee assaulted a female subordinate eight years ago, an incident that was probed twice by London police and resulted in no criminal charges or disciplinary action by the bank.

The alleged victim wrote to Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam about the incident at the start of this year and didn't receive a timely response, Credit Suisse said in an emailed statement Sunday. Thiam didn't see the correspondence until Feb. 28, and has ordered a separate internal inquiry as to why he wasn't made aware of it earlier, Credit Suisse also said.

Credit Suisse said the 2010 incident involved a male in a middle-management role and his female junior, and was reviewed internally at the time. The male is still employed by Credit Suisse.

“Credit Suisse has always treated allegations regarding harassment or assault with the utmost seriousness, and considers that it has a robust investigation and disciplinary framework in place to deal with them as and when they arise,” the bank said. “Any lessons learned from this review” by the bank's conduct and ethics board will inform future policy, it said.

Lara Warner, the bank's chief of compliance and regulatory affairs, is leading the review of the case.

Credit Suisse also said that at the end of February, it informed employees of changes to its disciplinary procedures that standardized policies across the bank. That followed a “root and branch review” of its procedures that was unrelated from the alleged 2010 incident.

To read a feature on how Wall Street handles allegations of harassment, click here.

To contact the reporter on this story: Keith Campbell in London at k.campbell@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann

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