(Bloomberg) -- UBS Group AG says its won a $282 million reduction in damages it owes to Bidzina Ivanishvili, the controversial Georgian tycoon and political leader who fell victim to a massive embezzlement scheme by a rogue banker at Credit Suisse.
Singapore’s International Commercial Court ordered the damages previously set at $743 million to be cut to $461 million, UBS said in a note accompanying its third-quarter results on Wednesday. The court’s revised award to Ivanishvili includes interest and costs, it said.
The case is a win for UBS, which acquired its stricken rival Credit Suisse last year. The collapsed bank suffered a string of defeats in its dispute with Ivanishvili, who was also awarded damages of more than $600 million in a related case in Bermuda. UBS is appealing that decision as it looks to tidy up the legal messes and scandals that contributed to the plunge in shareholder confidence in Credit Suisse and its eventual takeover.
Neither the Singapore court nor Ivanishvili’s lawyers in the UK were immediately available to comment on the ruling.
Lawyers for Ivanishvili have always contended that the banker’s supervisors were aware or should have known of Patrice Lescaudron’s subterfuge. They also argued that if managers didn’t know, they should be held criminally negligent.
His employer always consistently countered that the Frenchman — who took his own life following the scandal — was a “lone wolf” who hid his crimes from colleagues and bosses. But the Bermuda judge who ruled against Credit Suisse in 2022 said the unit in that island nation had turned a “blind eye.”
Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, is the founder of Georgian Dream, the ruling political party, which this week claimed victory in parliamentary elections that opponents claims were rigged. He’s widely seen by critics as sympathetic to Russia.
International observers criticized “highly divisive campaign rhetoric and widespread reports of pressure on voters” during the election, and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called for a “full investigation.”
Thousands of protesters turned out on to the streets of the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Monday night, answering a call from President Salome Zourabichvili to oppose the outcome.
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