Credit Suisse Sues, Files Criminal Complaint, Against Financial Blog “Harshly Critical” Of The Bank

Today in things not to do when you’re not panicking news…

Credit Suisse has reportedly filed a criminal complaint against a financial blog in Zurich, escalating a legal attack the bank has been putting in place over reader comments that were appended to a series of stories the blog ran about the bank earlier this year.

Bloomberg reports that the complaint follows a 265 page civil lawsuit that was filed over the comments, which the bank said “were harshly critical of it and some of its executives”, including the bank’s new CEO Ulrich Koerner. 

The civil claim against the publisher was for 300,000 Swiss francs ($322,000) and demanded the retraction of comments on the blogs. The bank has argued that the blog, Inside Paradeplatz, should have exercised more discretion in picking what comments it allowed to publish. 

Filing a criminal claim now escalates the situation, as a conviction of defamation could result in a fine or up to three years in prison, Bloomberg wrote on Friday.

Credit Suisse would not comment on the complaint and simply told Bloomberg it had “decided to proceed with a legal review of the legality of reader comments and texts. We are taking this step to protect our employees, who are regularly the subject of abusive and disparaging comments on the blog.”

Sure sounds like everything is going just peachy over at Credit Suisse…