Ding dong, the Credit Suisse shareholder lawsuit against KPMG is dead.
11 people at KPMG are celebrating today as the firm, them, and 29 people who worked at Credit Suisse will not be headed to the town pillory for misconduct related to the bank going down in flames last year.
Dozens of former Credit Suisse officials and the auditor KPMG won the dismissal of a U.S. shareholder lawsuit claiming they allowed 20 years of “continuous mismanagement” that led to the Swiss bank’s demise and takeover by UBS.
In a 92-page decision released on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan said accusations that the defendants allowed the improper “plunder” of Credit Suisse did not support racketeering claims in the proposed class action.
And:
KPMG was accused of “active complicity,” with its New York offices being “all but part of” Credit Suisse’s nearby offices, before PricewaterhouseCoopers became the bank’s auditor in 2020.
Shares of Credit Suisse dropped as low as a little over two bucks on March 17, 2023, UBS swept in to buy CS for $3 billion, and then gave 1 UBS share for every 22.48 Credit Suisse shares held to shareholders. UBS Group AG is trading at $27.77 as of publication time.
Credit Suisse officials, KPMG beat US lawsuit over bank’s demise [Reuters]
This just solidifies to me that auditing really is a zero value adding service. The entire profession is a sham.