UBS has appointed a veteran investment banker as its head of investigations. The move comes as the bank faces a lawsuit by a former graduate employee over her alleged rape by a superior at UBS.
The Swiss-based wealth manager named Emma Molvidson as its head of investigations globally, a spokesman for the bank told finews.asia. Molvidson, a Swedish-born lawyer, replaces Ursula La Roche (pictured below), who had been in the role just two years.
The job includes overseeing internal investigation teams in Zurich, Singapore, Hong Kong, London, and New York as well as a whistleblower notification post. It gained in prominence after a former graduate employee of the Swiss bank alleged she had been raped by her superior, and separately that she had been groped by a managing director at an event hosted by UBS.
Rape Case Mushrooms
The matter has mushroomed after the woman accused UBS of a whitewash, as the U.K. regulator also got involved. Molvidson spent more than four years as the investment bank's chief lawyer and the last three as the unit's chief of staff.
Like La Roche, she is a group managing director – a group of UBS' top 100 bankers who report directly to top management. La Roche, who oversaw UBS for Swiss regulator Finma until 2014, is now operating chief for UBS compliance and regulatory boss Markus Ronner. The investigations role, now in Molvidson's hands, also reports to Ronner.
No Errors Vs Whitewash
UBS beefed up to address the alleged rape: the bank poached a heavyweight from J.P. Morgan earlier this year for employee relations. A large part of her job is to help deal with the fallout from the woman's accusations.
The Swiss bank has said an outside investigation by London firm Freshfields concluded that UBS made no fundamental errors. UBS disclosed a host of measures designed to stamp out sexual misconduct including a hotline aside from its whistleblowing channels and beefed up training for cases of workplace aggression.
The graduate levying the accusations slammed UBS’ handling of the case as «flawed» and said the Freshfields review effectively whitewashed the bank.
