Credit Suisse has a U.S. partner to help it supervise its employees properly – a firm called Palantir. The Silicon Valley-based company enjoys excellent relations at government level and with the U.S. military.
Justin Mikolay (pictured left) is a typical Washington lobbyist. The U.S. citizen, 37, is the representative of Palantir, a CIA-sponsored data firm based in Silicon Valley that has seen meteoric growth in recent years.
Palantir has become a household name among Swiss banks as well. Credit Suisse (CS), the No. 2 in Switzerland, reached an agreement with the surveillance expert. The two companies together started a company called Signac. The aim of the joint venture was to detect potentially dangerous CS employees at the earliest possible stage.
Snooping Software
Signac’s tool is a software that emits a warning signal if it detects a problem. The CS investment bank reportedly made good experiences with the tool, prompting the bank to extend the use to international wealth management.
With mixed results: the joint venture was accused of snooping and hackers hired by the U.S. firm managed to break into the Palantir system.
Closely Associated With Trump
With the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, the U.S. firm now gets a reputation of being (too) closely associated with the U.S. administration: Mikolay, the lobbyist, has been named personal advisor to Defense Minister James Mattis. The nomination is hotly discussed in U.S. circles as Palantir was working very hard to get a lucrative deal from the U.S. military, as «Buzzfeed» reported recently.
Mikolay is one of 400 nominations made by Trump since his inauguration. Yet he isn’t the only representative of Palantir with such close proximity to the U.S. president.
Not the Only Friend in High Places
Peter Thiel, the Paypal- and Facebook-investor has not shied away from supporting Trump, unlike most other prominent members of the tech community. With his support he earned himself an appointment as tech-advisor to the White House. Thiel was one of the founders of Palantir.
To be sure: the company enjoyed excellent relations to government agencies also under ex-President Barack Obama. The CIA’s investment firm In-Q-Tel sponsored Palantir from early on.
The rise of the company has progressed unfettered since. Its clients include CS, Deutsche Bank, Axa, BP and Airbus. And the value of the company has reached $20 billion, almost as much as the value of top client CS.
