Mozambique urges Credit Suisse to fully cancel scam-linked debt

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Mozambique on Thursday referred to as on Credit score Suisse (CSGN.S) to completely cancel debt estimated at $2 billion linked to a scandal involving the financial institution, ten occasions greater than it has supplied to jot down off.

The Swiss lender helped to rearrange practically $1 billion in bonds plus a syndicated mortgage between 2013 to 2016, ostensibly to fund a tuna fishing mission.

On Tuesday, U.S. and British authorities fined Credit score Suisse a complete of $475 million to resolve bribery and fraud fees regarding the deal. read more

“Credit score Suisse’s acknowledgment of its duty, failure to adjust to the regulation … and involvement of workers in bribery reinforces the … legitimacy of the FMO’s demand for full cancellation of unlawful money owed,” the Funds Monitoring Discussion board (FMO), a unit of Mozambique’s Finance Ministry, mentioned.

It famous that Mozambique’s high courtroom had declared the debt null and void.

The financial institution, which had supplied to jot down off $200 million of what it says Mozambique owes, declined to remark.

A examine by the Chr. Michelsen Institute and Mozambique’s Middle for Public Integrity launched in Could estimated the full financial prices of the corruption scandal to Mozambique at $11 billion – equal to its total GDP for 2016.

Three former Credit score Suisse bankers, together with two middlemen and three Mozambican authorities officers, had been charged in 2018 for cash laundering and defrauding U.S. traders who had invested within the loans, a lot of which U.S. prosecutors mentioned had been diverted through kickbacks.

Reporting by Manuel Mucari, extra reporting by John Revill in Zurich
Writing by Promit Mukherjee
Modifying by Tim Cocks and John Stonestreet

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