FSA Fines Credit Suisse £5.6 Million

UK arm of Swiss giant hit over ABS pricing.

Morningstar | 13-08-08 | E-mail Article

The FSA today announced that it had fined the UK arm of Credit Suisse £5.6 million for "systems and control failings" related to the firm's incorrect pricing of asset-backed securities.

In February, Credit Suisse said that it would have to re-value a number of asset-backed securities that had been mis-priced by its staff. The result was a $2.65 billion write down of revenues.

The FSA said the firm had failed to adequately supervise the structured credit group and "did not act in a timely way on the concerns they had identified about the pricing of certain asset-backed positions." The regulator also cited inadequate systems and controls that permitted the incorrect valuations to remain undetected for a period of five months.

In a prepared statement, Margaret Cole, director of enforcement for the FSA, said:

" . . .The subsidiaries here failed to take appropriate steps to control the potentially high risk combination in the Structured Credit Group's holdings of exotic products, opaque valuations and high leverage. The sudden and unexpected announcement of the write down had the potential to undermine market confidence."

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