Dow Jones Newswires: Credit Suisse loses $900 million lawsuit to former Georgia prime minister

This post was originally published on this site

A Singapore court has ordered a unit of Credit Suisse Group to compensate Georgian businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili for its failure in safeguarding the plaintiff’s assets.

“It is noted that the Defendant (Credit Suisse) has admitted that it was in breach of its duty to the plaintiffs to safeguard the Trust assets by 31 December 2008,” the judgment posted on the Singapore International Commercial Court’s website showed Friday.

In 2004, Credit Suisse’s
CS,
+1.81%

private investment banking arm approached Ivanishvili and offered to assist him with wealth-management services.

Ivanishvili then deposited over $1.1 billion, placed in a trust with the objective of inheritance planning and asset holding, according to the judgment.

The judgment said that Patrice Lescaudron, who was appointed as the trust’s relationship manager, misappropriated many millions of dollars over the next nine years.

The loss suffered by Ivanishvili is determined by the court to be $926 million, and the defendant is liable to compensate Ivanishvili for the loss, the judgment said.

Write to P.R. Venkat at venkat.pr@wsj.com