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Christian Wenger is one of the shooters in the commercial and banking city of Zurich. The lead partner of the law firm Wenger & Vieli has just started the deal with Globus.
Clouds are now forming over a bench where Wenger was central. We are talking about the Falcon Private Bank. Wenger served on the Falcon Board of Directors from 2005 to 2017, most recently as President.
The Falcon announced yesterday that it was giving up its banking license and selling to customers.
The reasons are inherited problems and the failure of the current crew to give the Falcon a compelling future. The bank, which once had more than 300 members, disappears without a sound.
The grand finale is still ahead. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office has initiated proceedings against Falcon and the bank’s responsible individuals and clients. This is about to be completed.
According to a source, all the interrogations have been completed and the next step would be to prosecute him. Then a trial would take place in the Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona, with the corresponding disclosure of many explosive matters.
It is unknown who the Bern investigators are investigating. What is known is that Eduardo “Edi” Leemann, the longtime Falcon CEO, is in the crosshairs of the federal prosecutor’s office.
A recent federal court ruling shows the prominent role Leemann had played in the 1MDB case. It is a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund that has laundered billions of dollars in money laundering.
The Lausanne judges ruled against the former chief of the Falcon. The latter resisted the two-year ban on employing Finma. It failed.
There are passages in the reasoning that show how many places involved in questionable money transfers were involved in the Falcon. The focus is on the so-called “March transactions”.
This means high deposits and withdrawals since the spring of 2013. At that time, Falcon’s accounts received $ 1.3 billion in quick succession, of which 1.1 billion was paid shortly thereafter.
Officials at the Falcon branch in Singapore, over which the money flowed, warned as strongly as possible about money laundering. The boss there later ended up in prison.
He was of all the people who criticized the push of the huge sums between 2011 and 2015.
The former chief law officer at Falcon’s Zurich headquarters was also initially critical, but he came under pressure from above to expedite the deals.
This was “undoubtedly generated by his superiors” (Federal Court ruling of March 11, 2020), including the then Falcon CEO.
The ex-bank president even “misled” the former head of the law, according to the country’s highest judges, regarding the background to the delicate money transfers.
Despite this pressure, the senior compliance officer should have reported on money laundering. It is very regrettable that he had not adhered to the “compliance point of view”.
The aforementioned former president is an emissary from an Abu Dhabi state fund to which the Falcon belongs.
The Arab was chairman of the board of directors of the private bank from 2010 to 2013, briefly left the board and returned as a member in 2015.
The Sheikh of Abu Dhabi was arrested in his home country a year later. The 1MDB case became one of the biggest money laundering scandals. Among others, the American icon Goldman Sachs was right in the middle.
As a medium-sized bench, the Falcon got into trouble. In the fall of 2016, Finma showed him the yellow card. One more failure, then it’s over.
The scepter was assumed by lawyer Christian Wenger as the new president. It is unknown what Wenger heard as a board member in the “hot” years before. The owners of Arabia were in charge.
The Falcon’s former vice president, a Swede, actually led the board meetings because the Arabs were often absent. He did what they were told to do.
Among the clients was Austrian René Benko, who now asks Migros from around the world to accommodate him and has his man for Zurich in Wenger.
And above all another “child prodigy”: Lars Windhorst. He has been talking about himself for years. At Falcon, he was considered an important customer.
In the federal court ruling in March against the former Falcon lawyer, there are passages around a client who would have defended controversial money transfers through the private bank.
It was unclear why this client interfered, as it had officially had nothing to do with these agreements, Lausanne judges said.
It is not clear which customer it is. That could change if the federal prosecutor publishes his indictment. One of the interviewees said that this should be the case before the summer holidays.
For attorney Christian Wenger, Falcon’s story is awkward. It is at the top of digital Switzerland, which wants to catapult the country into modern times. Wenger also has numerous terms.
