The trial of the Swiss bank's former Pierin Vincenz is expected to reveal details of how the long-standing CEO turned a cooperative-based power dynamic on its head.
The criminal trial of Pierin Vincenz is set to open next week, offering a revealing glimpse into a 16-year CEO tenure at Raiffeisen and illustrating how the long-standing CEO was able to shift influence from cooperative member banks as well as his own board.
From 1999 to 2015, Vincenz build an imperium for the systemically-relevant bank to include private bank Notenstein, fund provider TCMG, and stakes in insurer Helvetia as well as derivatives specialist Leonteq. Each expansion step seemed to cement his influence at Raiffeisen.
Secret Side Deals
Vincenz, his long-time associate Beat Stocker, and five others are due to stand trial in Zurich. All deny the charges against them, which center around enrichment, fraud, and mismanagement. Raiffeisen has joined the prosecution as a private plaintiff.
Specifically, Vincenz and the associates stand accused of taking secret side deals to the ones Raiffeisen carried out between 2006 and 2017; the CEO allegedly also ran up huge restaurant and nightclub tabs, declaring them as business expenses.
Prosecutors want financial restitution from Vincenz as well as six years imprisonment – minus the 106 days the now 65-year-old banker spent in custody in 2018. It represents a rare example of Switzerland's business establishment being taken to task by officials.
Spendy Strip «Kings»
The indictment illustrates just how vast his influence apparently was at Raiffeisen (Vincenz's criminal defender declined to comment to finews.com): then-Chairman Johannes Rueegg-Stuerm signed off on a host of expenses which were questionable at best.
For example, prosecutors allege Vincenz submitted a 2,800 Swiss franc ($3,050) receipt from King's Club, a strip venue in Zurich, as a business expense. The credit card receipt noted the expense as «bourse – restaurant, Zurich».
Rueegg-Stuerm, an academic at St. Gallen's prestigious business university until last year, stepped down from Raiffeisen in 2018 as the scandal escalated. Since then, the cooperative bank has had three chairman in four years.
