Gérard Soisson (1935–1983) was a
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
The language is standardized and officiall ...
banker who was at the center of the
Clearstream Affair. He was the person who authorized each non-published account, which would be known only by some insiders, including the auditors and members of the council of administration.
Whereas Soisson had refused numerous requests to open non-published accounts from such institutions as
Chase Manhattan in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
,
Chemical Bank
Chemical Bank, headquartered in New York City, was the principal operating subsidiary of Chemical Banking Corporation, a bank holding company. In 1996, it acquired Chase Bank, adopted the Chase name, and became the largest bank in the United Stat ...
of
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, and numerous subsidiaries of
Citibank
Citibank, N.A. ("N. A." stands for "National bank (United States), National Association"; stylized as citibank) is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of Citigroup, a financial services multinational corporation, multinational corporation. Ci ...
,
Cedel
Clearstream Banking SA is one of two world-leading international central securities depositories, the other one being Euroclear Bank. It is a fully-owned subsidiary of the Clearstream Group, itself part of Deutsche Börse Group.
History
The C ...
opened hundreds of non-published accounts, all of them irregular, especially after the arrival of CEO
André Lussi in 1990.
By 1980, Ernest Backes had become Cedel's #3, in charge of relations with clients, but he was fired in May 1983, allegedly because he "knew too much about the
Ambrosiano scandal". Two months after his dismissal, Gérard Soisson was found dead in Corsica.
With Soisson out of the way, there was nothing to stop the
abuse of the system, wrote
Lucy Komisar
Lucy Komisar (born 1942) is a New York City-based investigative journalist and drama critic.
Komisar was editor of the ''Mississippi Free Press'' in Jackson, Mississippi from 1962 to 1963. The weekly covered the civil rights movement and relat ...
. No longer were they just sub-accounts of officially listed accounts, as Backes charges. Some were for banks that were not subsidiaries or even official members of Cedel.
At the start of 1995, Cedel had more than 2,200 published accounts. But in reality, according to documents obtained by Backes, Cedel that year managed more than 4,200 accounts, leading to an alleged total of 2,000 unpublished accounts in 1995.
1935 births
1983 deaths
French bankers
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