Credit Suisse bankers' other fear: UBS's severance pay
Losing your job at Credit Suisse is not a happy experience. But as UBS and Credit Suisse conjoin, a new fear is afflicting people at risk of being chopped: what if UBS's severance pay is even less generous than Credit Suisse's?
UBS declined to comment on the concerns, which insiders say have erupted in the past week. In the worst case scenario, it's feared that UBS will decide to award severance on a par with that paid by Deutsche Bank, which began awarding only the statutory minimum of one week per year of service in 2018 and evicted thousands of people on this basis in 2019.
Credit Suisse is usually twice as generous at Deutsche Bank: it was most recently seen paying two weeks' severance for each year of service. Even this is far less beneficent than the historic highs for banking severance packages, though: employment lawyer Philip Landau says four weeks were once on offer in London.
Some optimistic Credit Suisse insiders inform us they've heard that UBS will paying three weeks' severance if and when it lets them go. Last year, UBS paid $1.7m in severance, according to its most recent compensation report. In that same report, however, the bank said its severance terms, "comply with the applicable local laws (legally obligated severance)," implying that it reserves the right to pay the least amount possible.
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