About

EFG International is an international private and banking assets management company that operates in around 30 locations worldwide, and is headquartered in Zurich. The legal department has supported some of EFG’s most important deals, such as the 2016 completion of the ordinary share capital increase, in connection with the acquisition of BSI Group. The merger will create one of the largest private banks in Switzerland with approximately CHF 170bn combined assets under management. This new entity will see a new management structure put in place, and resolution of problems that BSI was facing in connection with money laundering investigations by FINMA. In the past two years EFG International has established a comprehensive risk supervision framework in which policies and procedures are standardised, ensuring that various categories of risk, such as credit, market, liquidity, operational, compliance, legal and reputational, can be identified and managed throughout the organisation in an effective and consistent manner. Fred Link is the bank’s chief risk officer that has spearheaded much of this change, in conjunction with Swiss general counsel Andreas Müller. Due to the scrutiny that the Swiss banking sector has been under in recent years, the EFG legal team are highly focused on implementing internal rules and processes in order to control the group’s legal risk, by providing advice to the group’s management, as well as the front and back offices. The team has also had a central role to play in the management of litigation, as well as handling client complaints and assisting federal and local authorities in their criminal and administrative investigations.