UBS Seeks Confirmation of Rejection of Former Executives’ Claims Over Deferred Compensation Certificates
Key Facts
UBS asked a New York state court on Wednesday to confirm arbitration decisions rejecting claims by two former Credit Suisse executives over deferred compensation certificates canceled in the 2023 merger of the two banks, according to Bloomberg. The filing puts the arbitrators’ decisions before the court; it does not mean the court has issued a ruling upholding them. The executives are Martin Egho and Jeffrey Jennings, who said their certificates should not have been canceled as part of the merger. Bloomberg says the arbitrators rejected their claims and UBS is now seeking to have that rejection confirmed by the court. The dispute is connected to the compensation cases that followed Credit Suisse’s rescue and its takeover by UBS.
The claims concern contingent capital award certificates, known as CCA, deferred compensation instruments that have been the subject of lawsuits against UBS by former senior Credit Suisse bankers. According to the former executives, the certificates should not have been canceled when the two banks merged in 2023. Bloomberg says the Egho and Jennings cases are among a number of claims the Swiss bank has faced from former senior bankers over these certificates. UBS’s request to confirm the arbitration decisions concerns these two claims, while the number of cases points to compensation disputes extending beyond completion of the merger. The filing does not address, according to the report, a court ruling voiding compensation obligations or a financial benefit realized by the bank.
The broader background to the merger began with the confidence crisis at Credit Suisse. Switzerland’s financial regulator FINMA said on 19 March 2023 that the crisis had been reflected in a significant outflow of client funds. On the same day, the regulator said the extraordinary government support connected with the deal would lead to the full write-down of the bank’s AT1 debt, with a nominal value of about 16 billion Swiss francs. FINMA said the authorities’ action was aimed at preventing serious damage to Swiss and international financial markets. Bloomberg, for its part, said the Swiss government arranged the merger to rescue Credit Suisse, which was at risk of collapse. The disputed CCA certificates arose in the context of these decisions accompanying the bank’s rescue and merger.
UBS’s 2023 compensation report shows the scale of the impact on Credit Suisse’s deferred award programs. The report said the bank’s employees lost about 2.8 billion Swiss francs in deferred compensation, a decline of 75% from the original grant value. After cancellations, about 947 million Swiss francs remained payable, according to the report. The remaining amounts included awards that remained at risk, were tied to the achievement of performance conditions, or were subject to malus or clawback provisions. UBS said FINMA had ordered the cancellation of outstanding contingent capital award certificates in line with the write-down of Credit Suisse’s AT1 debt. These regulatory decisions explain the context in which the executives’ claims over compensation certificates arose, but do not in themselves determine the outcome of their case before the New York court.
In a separate proceeding from the executives’ two claims in New York, the Swiss courts addressed bonuses for senior Credit Suisse officials. Switzerland’s Supreme Court said in a ruling issued on 16 September that government assistance justified preventing unreasonably high variable bonuses. Bloomberg quoted the court as saying: "Given the scale of the government assistance required, there is a public interest in preventing unreasonably high variable compensation." Reuters also reported that the Swiss Federal Supreme Court upheld cuts to and cancellations of bonuses for Credit Suisse’s top three management levels, overturning an earlier ruling by the Federal Administrative Court. That case concerns regulatory bonuses for former officials, while the New York dispute concerns CCA certificates and claims by former executives; they are separate legal proceedings.
In trading, UBS shares closed at 46.87 on 22 October 2026, according to EL7 daily data, after closing at 47.93 the previous day. The data provided do not specify the price unit or include the session’s high and low prices. The daily comparison shows the closing-price movement between the two dates, without linking it to UBS’s court filing. The sources did not give a date for the court’s next consideration of the request or a scheduled hearing in the case. The specific procedural step described is UBS’s request for a New York state court to confirm the arbitration decisions rejecting the claims by Egho and Jennings.