Tidjane Thiam, the former CEO of Credit Suisse, has announced on his Instagram account that he intends to appeal against the acquittal of his former housekeeper for attempted coercion. According to Thiam, the decision of the Meilen district court in Switzerland is incorrect.
The district court of Meilen acquitted Thiam’s former housekeeper on Tuesday, ruling that the email she sent demanding a significant sum of money was not coercion.
In a post dated Thursday and shared by several German-speaking media outlets on Saturday, Thiam expressed his disagreement with the court’s decision. “This week, despite the evidence presented in the case, the Court decided to acquit the former employee in a judgment that, in my opinion, is incorrect and will be appealed,” he wrote.
The former housekeeper, a 43-year-old Romanian, worked in Thiam’s villa in Herrliberg, Switzerland. She was demanding 587,000 Swiss francs from her former boss to settle their dispute, threatening to inform the unions and the International Olympic Committee, of which Thiam was a member at the time, if he did not pay. Thiam did not comply and instead reported the matter to the police.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office considered this email to be an attempted coercion and extortion. They had requested a sentence of 7 months of suspended imprisonment and a fine of 1200 Swiss francs.
However, the judge justified the acquittal on Tuesday by stating that coercion implies the threat of serious harm. The judge also noted that Thiam had previously received negative publicity after ordering the surveillance of senior executives at the bank.
Given this context, the judge found it unlikely that Thiam would subsequently pay over half a million Swiss francs to a housekeeper simply because she could have made public the unfavorable working conditions she experienced while working for him.
Thiam’s decision to appeal the acquittal sets the stage for a legal battle between him and his former housekeeper. The outcome of this appeal will determine whether the initial verdict will be upheld or overturned, leading to potential further consequences for both parties involved in the case.