Article: Credit Suisse Is Accused of Defrauding Investors in 4 Resorts

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Credit Suisse Is Accused of Defrauding Investors in 4 Resorts

Jim Robbins

New York Times, 4 January 2010

Investors at four high-end resorts have filed a class-action lawsuit against Credit Suisse and the real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield, contending that they conspired to inflate the value of the properties so they could take them over.

The suit, outlined in an 84-page complaint filed Sunday in federal court in Boise, Idaho, details what it calls a sweeping loan-to-own scheme. Credit Suisse, according to the complaint, raked in huge fees on loans against the properties, which it syndicated and sold to hedge fund managers. If the resorts could not pay back the hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, based on the inflated values, Credit Suisse could either assume ownership as the agent for the creditors or sell the resorts.

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Article: $24 billion lawsuit filed against Credit Suisse

Article - Media

$24 billion lawsuit filed against Credit Suisse

Rebecca Boone

The Seattle Times, 4 January 2010

Property owners at four struggling and bankrupt resorts in Idaho, Montana, Nevada and the Bahamas have filed a $24 billion federal lawsuit against Credit Suisse Group, saying the banking giant gave predatory loans to the resorts’ investors as part of a scheme to take over the properties.

Property owners at Idaho’s Tamarack Resort, the Yellowstone Club in Montana, Nevada’s Lake Las Vegas resort and the Ginn Sur Mer Resort in the Bahamas contend that Credit Suisse set up a branch in the Cayman Islands to skirt U.S. federal bank regulations and appraised the resorts at artificially inflated values as part of a plan to foreclose.

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