Credit Suisse: We were running a criminal enterprise.

We have written at some length about Credit Suisse’s attempted defences of its long-standing business model, highlighted in a headline “Credit Suisse CEO says a few bankers are to blame for $10bn in tax evasion.” As we said:

“The old ‘a few rotten apples’ defence.

“Some Swiss-based private bankers went to great lengths to disguise their bad conduct from Credit Suisse executive management,” Dougan said during his testimony in Washington DC.

Oh yeah? Here’s a more accurate description, Mr. Dougan: it’s institutionalised corruption and criminality in the entire Swiss banking system, for over a century.

Now we see, from a private asset recovery group:

“Credit Suisse is set to sign a document admitting it had unwittingly run a “criminal enterprise” in its past wooing of US tax dodgers (media reports).

“We were running a criminal enterprise, but we didn’t know,” reads the document cited by the media. However, we dispute that they didn’t know – and have the documents to back us up.”

Interesting. Let’s see how this one plays out.