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Wüthrich is seeking SFr280 million
($231 million) from some of
Switzerland’s top business people
and politicians who were in charge
of Swissair before it collapsed.
It was left to the taxpayer to fund
the creation of a new airline,
"Swiss", from the remains of
Swissair, at a cost of more than
SFr1 billion.
He told creditors this week that he
had filed lawsuits in mid-March
against former CEO Philippe
Bruggisser and former finance chief
Georges Schorderet.
The liquidator is also suing
ex-board members, among them Thomas
Schmidheiny, Lukas Mühlemann, and
Mario Corti, a former Nestlé
executive who replaced Bruggisser
when the extent of Swissair’s
financial problems became known.
The former bosses and board could
also face more serious charges – of
falsifying documents and breach of
trust – according to the Zurich
cantonal prosecutor, who told a
newspaper that he could bring
criminal charges later this year.
The writs issued by Wüthrich concern
an internal transaction in which
Swissair’s bankrupt parent company,
SAirGroup, handed over a firm called
Roscor AG to another company within
the group but received no
compensation from the receiving
firm, SAirLines.
Wüthrich says the managers and the
board at the time approved the
takeover and are therefore
personally responsible for the loss
incurred to SAirGroup, which he
estimates at SFr280 million.
Wüthrich is also seeking money back
from consultants and banks, which
were paid just before Swissair went
under. Claim avoidance actions have
already been launched against
consultants KPMG and Deutsche Bank.
swissinfo: Is the Roscor transaction
the only mistake made by the
management and the board? Didn't
their strategy destroy the national
airline?
Karl Wüthrich: This Roscor
transaction is only the first step.
We are looking for other
transactions, for example the buying
of stakes in loss-making airlines
such as Belgium’s Sabena and
France’s Air Littoral. So we will be
looking at all these transactions
and I’m sure we will come up with
other cases in which the management
and board should be held to account.
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I’m sure we will
come up with other
cases in which the
management and board
should be held to
account.
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swissinfo: How do you rate your
chances of success, given that you
are taking on some heavyweight
business people and politicians?
K.W.: I don’t start lawsuits if I do
not see chances of success. I’m
convinced we have a strong case. In
all the big cases I have dealt with
in the past, the boards of directors
and the auditors have had to pay.
swissinfo: Have you uncovered any
evidence of criminal activity – the
Zurich prosecutor is investigating
the same individuals for
falsification of documents. Or is
this simply a case of incompetence
and bad decisions?
K.W.: I am only concerned with
getting money from those liable. In
these cases, the decisions of the
managers concerned and the board
were not in the best interests of
the company. They did not make use
of all the information available to
them and did not think through the
consequences properly. The board of
directors has to act in a
responsible way and they did not do
so.
swissinfo: You are also trying to
make some of SAirGroup’s consultants
and banks pay back fees they
received from the company just
before it went bankrupt. What have
they done wrong?
K.W.: A short time before the
insolvency proceedings started, they
were paid in full. So they were
treated in a preferential way
compared with other creditors. That
is all. It has nothing to do with
incompetence or whether their fees
were too high. It’s just because
they were paid in full, but the
other creditors were not.
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The [banks and
consultants] were
treated in a
preferential way
compared with other
creditors.
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swissinfo: So they took the money
even though they knew SAirGroup was
on the verge of bankruptcy, and
other creditors would lose out?
K.W.: To get them to return their
fees, the liquidator has to prove
that the creditors who were given
preference knew that they were being
treated in a preferential manner.
And of course, with the consultancy
firms such as McKinsey, which was
giving advice concerning a possible
restructuring, there is a feeling
that they possibly knew about the
financial situation of SAirGroup.
swissinfo: And the same applies to
the banks?
K.W.: We are investigating whether
to launch lawsuits against the
banks, which were also paid. The
banks are much more interesting than
the advisers, from a financial point
of view. Our goal is to make sure
that all creditors are treated
equally. And to avoid having some
treated more equally than others.
swissinfo-interview: Jonas Hughes
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