A final bank run resulted in the collapse of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse (CS) in March 2023. This documentary reveals how the bank's most senior executives established a corporate culture geared towards self-profit since the 1970s - until the bubble finally burst many decades later.
(Please note that this documentary will also be released as a TV series later on. I'm reviewing the theatrical cut with a slightly shorter running time of 104 minutes. Both works are based on the book "Game Over" by Swiss investigative journalist Arthur Rutishauser, also released in 2025).
How could this all happen?
And why was this allowed to happen in a country so known for its secretive banks and its banking heritage (for better or worse)?
The documentary starts off with detailed insights into the Chiasso/Texon scandal in 1977, Credit Suisse's first major blunder. The movie then accelerates its pacing, covering the global expansion and ultimate overreach of Credit Suisse in the US Investment Banking (IB) sector (gobbling up and merging with First Boston and DLJ for billions of $ before the turn of the century) under the leadership of the self-aggrandizing Rainer E. Gut. He is rightly portrayed as the key architect (and ultimately culprit) for CS' global IB ambitions.
An even more sinister scandal of Credit Suisse is covered in Mozambique (the so-called "Tuna Bond" affair, ultimately resulting in unrest and civil war in the African country) in gory detail - while CS' own "foot soldiers" (low-level private bankers visiting their US clients, often for tax-evading purposes) were left hanging high and dry by CS' top executives when the DOJ started investigating the bank.
In contrast, the last two big scandals (Archegos and Greensill, billions in losses again for CS), which ultimately accelerated the demise of CS, are only mentioned in passing.
Below is my detailed criticism for Game Over, covering a few weak points and misses:
- The Swiss regulator's (FINMA) various governance mistakes, such as setting up and allowing a benign custom regulatory filter for CS (which led to key bank ratios, such as CET1, being whitewashed on the CS balance sheet and earnings statements since at least 2019) aren't mentioned.
- The role of former Swiss politicians (culminating in the absurd refusal to tackle the CS problem under former Swiss finance minister Ueli Maurer) and the role of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in off-the-record "non-meeting meetings" are not discussed in detail either.
- The failures of the CS BoD and the bank's external auditors are also not discussed. Only the Chair of the CS board (Mr. Urs Rohner, identified as one of the main culprits since he presided over the CS board for a full decade) is covered in the documentary. Did all the other well-known business men and women on the CS BoD fall through the cracks? Names like Blythe Masters or Severin Schwan (the list is much longer, just two examples...) don't appear once in the theatrical cut. Neither are the external regulators and auditors who signed off on CS' books year after year.
- No external critic has a say or appearance in the movie cut either. (There were a handful of journalists and short-sellers who warned about CS' implosion for years, none are mentioned). Instead, Swiss banking giant UBS' bosses can bask in the glow of their triumph (UBS acquired the remains of its former rival CS for cents on the dollar - in a shotgun wedding orchestrated by the SNB, FINMA and top Swiss politicians in March 2023). UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher and his CEO Sergio Ermotti jokingly portray each other as Marlon Brando and George Clooney. These final scenes feel like unnecessary PR adulation for UBS. The documentary makers seem to have forgotten that UBS itself was on the brink back in 1997 and especially in 2008, when the bank had to be bailed out by the SNB (during the US subprime housing collapse and the resulting GFC).
The movie also doesn't provide any stern outlook now that the combined UBS and CS bank balance sheets dwarf Switzerland's entire GDP by a factor of over 2:1 (!). See my footnote in the PS below.
Maybe the upcoming TV series (with a longer running time of 180 minutes) will cover a few more details or missing topics listed above?
On the plus side: A few tidbits unknown to the larger public are revealed. CS was basically bankrupt in 1977 already and only saved itself by not revealing the full size of its losses at the time. Finally, more corporate greed led its executives to pass on a partial takeover offer by third parties (notably a spin off and sale of the loss-making IB unit in 2022 for $5 billion to a group led by well-known US banking executive Bob Diamond): CS top execs were so blind-sided that they turned down takeover bids even one year before the collapse. This wasn't widely known either (the film makers manage to interview Bob Diamond). The longest-serving employee of Credit Suisse (Mr. Richard Chandler) is featured throughout the film and cracks jokes while rambling about many of his former bosses. He provides some lighter moments in between a sea of red ink numbers, coupled with a corporate culture filled with arrogance and greed: The CS execs and their directors kept or even increased their absurd bonus payouts while CS racked up huge operational losses and paid fines and sanctions for billions and billions of $ over the past decades.
Despite my earlier criticism: I recommend Game Over as a documentary movie; especially so if you are interested in business, banking or finance. Everyone else should see it to understand the dubious incentives for greedy executives at big banks that are deemed "too big to fail":
Heads: I win. Tails: You lose.
Rating: 7+/10.
PS: 'Heads, I win, tails, you lose' still is the motto at many international banking giants, even after the learnings of the GFC in 2008 and new regulatory framework attempts such as Basel III. Each and every Swiss citizen watching this film can only hope that there's no dark sequel "Game Over 2.0 - The Fall of UBS" looming on the horizon.
