Court rejects former Credits Suisse boss’s claims of blackmail against housekeeper

Tidjane Thiam accused domestic worker of extortion after she sought compensation for working conditions

A top Swiss banker accused his former housekeeper of blackmail after she had a nervous breakdown when working at his luxury villa.
Tidjane Thiam, the former head of Credit Suisse, accused the domestic worker of extortion when she demanded almost 600,000 Swiss francs (£547,000) in compensation for alleged abusive working conditions.
However, a judge in Zurich rejected claims brought by criminal prosecutors, ruling that the former staff member had acted within her contractual rights. The case was brought by prosecutors and Mr Thiam was not party to it.
The trial of the 43-year-old Romanian woman, whose name was withheld by the court, centred on a dispute over her employment by the businessman.
Stephan Reinhardt, a lawyer for the woman, said she had suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of her working conditions, the Financial Times reported.
The court heard that the housekeeper had not been able to take holiday or time off during her employment.
Mr Reinhardt said her distress culminated with an incident in the early hours of a Sunday morning in December 2018, when she claimed to have been verbally abused by Mr Thiam’s partner after the boiler broke down at the villa on Lake Zurich.
The woman was hospitalised shortly afterwards and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder before being fired by Mr Thiam, the court was told.
The housekeeper, who won a civil case against the businessman last year, testified that she had not intended to make any of these events public.
Following her dismissal, the woman sent an email to her former employer asking for 587,000 Swiss francs in compensation.
She said she “did not wish to harm him” but that she would approach trade unions and the International Olympic Committee, of which Mr Thiam is a member, if the dispute was not resolved.
Lawyers for Mr Thiam argued that the email amounted to a criminal attempt at blackmail. But the judge dismissed the claim, ruling that the message was unlikely to have any coercive effect.
Mr Thiam, who is currently attending the Olympic Games in Paris, is reportedly planning to appeal the verdict.
It is not the first time he has been embroiled in controversy. The former Credit Suisse chief executive was ousted in 2020 after the Swiss bank admitted to spying on former employees.
Mr Thiam was not involved in the spying case and denied any knowledge of it. However, the board ousted him over the incident, with chairman Urs Rohner saying at the time there had been a “deterioration in terms of trust, reputation and credibility”.
Mr Thiam’s departure triggered further scandal at the bank as reports emerged that he had been subjected to racial discrimination during his tenure. 
Credit Suisse apologised for an incident in which the former boss left a birthday party for Mr Rohner after a black performer danced on stage dressed as a janitor.
The bank was taken over by rival UBS last year in a rescue deal, after coming to the brink of collapse.
In December, Mr Thiam was elected to lead the opposition party in his home country of Ivory Coast. He is preparing to run in the next presidential election in 2025.