You could say the name says it all. “Hässig” is Swiss German for angry, and what Lukas Hässig says on his blog Inside Pardeplatz writes is usually polemical, provocative and angry. The 58-year-old business journalist from Zurich is well-known in the financial world, and not just in Switzerland. His one-man platform is read by bankers, analysts and, of course, other media people, because Hässig’s texts about the Swiss financial center are not only entertainingly pointed, they are usually well researched. In 2018, the Swiss media industry even voted him “Journalist of the Year”. In 2016, Hässig almost single-handedly started the affair surrounding Raiffeisen boss Pierin Vincenz, and in 2022 the former star banker finally had to answer in court for fraud and other allegations.
Hässig is therefore a recognized researcher who has several scoops under his belt – but also one who is not exactly squeamish in his choice of words and presentation. The legal disputes that he had and still has to deal with are so numerous that he has lost count, says Hässig on the phone. And the proceedings do not always revolve around banks: in the summer it had to be Inside parade ground with business journalist and entrepreneur Patrizia Laeri apologize for sexism.
The bank demands the profit that Hässig made with the contributions, “plus 5 percent interest since the publication date”
So far, Lukas Hässig has survived the legal dispute financially and in terms of reputation. But now he is threatened with a process that far exceeds the previous legal attacks. As he himself published on his blog on Monday, the major Swiss bank Credit Suisse has filed a lawsuit against Hässig and his blog. It is therefore about 52 articles and around 200 comments in the period from July 27 to October 28, all of which deal with the bank and in which Credit Suisse sees the personal rights of its managers violated. “The management team and thus the plaintiffs are being ridiculed, covered with insults and exposed,” Hässig quotes from the lawsuit documents. The banking group is “made despicable, even simply written off, customers and employees are even actively encouraged to leave the bank”.
Inside parade ground According to the bank, on the one hand, it demands the deletion of all text passages and comments sued for. On the other hand, she wants Hässig to hand over the profit he has made with the contributions since the end of July, “plus 5 percent interest since the publication date”.
The latter in particular is interesting. It is legally possible in Switzerland to hand over profits due to a breach of personality through media reports, but no one affected has actually fought for it. So far, the former politician Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin has come the furthest, because of a smear campaign against her person in the View sued against the Ringier publishing house. Last June the Zug cantonal court decidedthat Ringier has to publish key figures on several articles about Spiess-Hegglin. Based on these numbers, the profit from the articles should then be calculated, which Spiess-Hegglin demands as compensation.
Hässig admits that he is certainly someone who sometimes exaggerates
So now Credit Suisse is trying to do something similar – only that she is not a woman who may have been the victim of a sexual assault and was then dragged through the mud by the tabloids, but a scandal bank that is going through the worst crisis in decades. Nevertheless, as Lukas Hässig quotes, she finds: “Scandalization and sensational journalism, permanent denigration and complete disavowal practically every three days – the plaintiffs don’t have to put up with this.”
The bank has the lawsuit to multiple media confirmed. The legal review is done “to protect our employees, who are regularly insulted and denigrated on the blog”.
Hässig is now working with his lawyer to come up with an answer and will submit it to the Zurich Commercial Court in the spring. “I’m actually not afraid,” says the journalist in an interview with the SZ. And that despite the fact that, according to him, the value in dispute is 300,000 francs. The first lawsuit that Credit Suisse filed against him in 2015, and from which Hässig largely emerged victorious, involved 100,000 francs and just a few individual items. Hässig admits that he is certainly someone who sometimes exaggerates. “But this is about silencing an unwelcome medium with a lawsuit.”