UBS pays US$300 million to settle Credit Suisse mortgage case

[ZURICH] UBS Group said it reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice to resolve a legacy Credit Suisse matter related to the former bank’s role in selling residential mortgage-backed securities in the US.

An agreement between the DOJ and a Credit Suisse subsidiary had been reached “to resolve all outstanding Consumer Relief Obligations under the 2017 settlement by paying US$300 million,” UBS said in a statement on Monday (Aug 4).

UBS is working through a list of legacy legal issues inherited from Credit Suisse, which it bought in an emergency rescue in 2023. In May, UBS agreed to pay US$511 million to settle a US investigation into how Credit Suisse Group helped rich Americans evade taxes.

A number of lenders had faced claims over the sale of mortgage securities that plummeted in value during the 2008 financial crisis. The banks faced allegations that they misrepresented the quality of the home loans underpinning these securities in order to win buyers, exacerbating the impact of the sub-prime mortgage collapse.

In 2023, UBS agreed to pay US$1.44 billion to settle its own long-running case over US mortgage-backed securities, which was one of the bank’s biggest legal headaches at the time.

UBS said that as a result of Monday’s announcement it expects to recognise a credit in its third quarter earnings in the bank’s non-core unit as a result of the release of the contingent liability. BLOOMBERG