SEC to accuse Credit Suisse of inflating asset reports

(Reuters) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to file charges against Credit Suisse Group A.G. for inflating reports of assets under management in its private bank, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the case.

The SEC will allege that Credit Suisse at times improperly counted client assets in the Americas as net new assets for the Swiss private bank from 2012, the FT said.

The SEC and Credit Suisse declined to comment.

As talks between the bank and the SEC over potential civil charges continue, a person familiar with the bank’s negotiating position stressed that the bank had not broken any accounting rules, the newspaper reported.

The allegations were raised in February 2014, when the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations cited emails from the bank’s staff asking whether money could be booked in a different region to make end-quarter numbers look better.