George Bachiashvili’s Role in Exposing Financial Fraud and Safeguarding Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Interests against Credit Suisse
The Credit Suisse Affair
While George Bachiashvili was building his independent portfolio of investments, his loyalty and commitment to Bidzina Ivanishvili remained steadfast. Bachiashvili played a pivotal role in uncovering a major fraud scandal in 2015, which proved crucial to Ivanishvili and solidified his importance to the Georgian billionaire for many years. His instrumental involvement in resolving this crisis may also provide context for the timing of criminal charges brought against him in later years.
Ivanishvili, known for managing his vast fortune through various banking institutions, had established a trust with Credit Suisse’s Geneva branch in 2005. In 2006, the bank assigned portfolio manager Patrice Lescaudron to oversee Ivanishvili’s personal and Trust’s investments. For nearly a decade, everything appeared normal. Lescaudron consistently reported strong portfolio performance and regularly traveled to Georgia, accompanied by senior executives, to update Ivanishvili’s financial team.
In 2015, Bachiashvili, then CEO of the Georgian Co-Investment Fund (GCF) and Ivanishvili’s official contact for Credit Suisse, received an unexpected call from two senior executives. They informed him that Lescaudron had been hospitalized, and they had uncovered a significant shortfall in the trust’s account due to an investment that triggered a margin call. Immediately suspicious, Bachiashvili recognized that such a margin call was implausible given the scale of the portfolio and requested a thorough review of the trust’s records.
Upon examining the documents, Bachiashvili uncovered a staggering discrepancy: the portfolio, which had been reported as worth $1.2 billion, was actually valued at only $440 million. Further investigation revealed that a single, ill-advised investment accounted for half of the portfolio’s assets, causing the margin call. This revelation exposed Lescaudron’s years of fraudulent activity and theft.
Once the extent of the fraud was clear, Bachiashvili swiftly notified Ivanishvili and took immediate action. Tasked with managing the legal response, he engaged top law firms in London, Singapore, and Bermuda, overseeing litigation against Credit Suisse in multiple jurisdictions. For the next eight years, Bachiashvili played a key role in coordinating with Ivanishvili’s legal teams, providing critical evidence and serving as a primary witness in various trials.
Despite his unwavering support during the legal battles, tensions eventually emerged between Bachiashvili and Ivanishvili. In May 2022, Zaza Shatirishvili, a close associate of Ivanishvili, began promoting a conspiracy theory suggesting that the United States was attempting to pressure Georgia into the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This theory, echoed by members of Ivanishvili’s political party, Georgian Dream, claimed that the Credit Suisse fraud was part of a broader plot to blackmail Ivanishvili into re-entering politics to serve Western interests.
Delusions of Western Persecution
Privately, George Bachiashvili made several attempts to persuade Bidzina Ivanishvili that the conspiracy theories he was promoting were baseless, noting that the Credit Suisse fraud long preceded Ivanishvili’s political career. Bachiashvili emphasized the lack of any credible evidence linking the U.S. or any foreign interests to the scandal. However, his reasoning fell on deaf ears, and soon members of Ivanishvili’s inner circle began to view Bachiashvili with suspicion, accusing him of aligning with Western interests. This distrust deepened, when Bachiashvili publicly expressed his support for Ukraine, a stance that sharply contrasted with Ivanishvili’s party, which resisted imposing Western sanctions on Russia.
By September 2022, as the Bermuda court proceedings neared, Ivanishvili’s paranoia escalated. He began sporadically accusing Bachiashvili of being an American spy and conspiring with Western governments in the Credit Suisse case. Despite these unsubstantiated allegations, Ivanishvili continued to allow Bachiashvili to manage the legal battle.
Bachiashvili’s success in these legal cases further undermined Ivanishvili’s accusations. In May 2023, a Singapore court ordered Credit Suisse to pay Ivanishvili $926 million, followed by a ruling in June from the Bermuda Court of Appeals, which upheld a $600 million award to Ivanishvili’s family. Despite these significant legal victories, Ivanishvili’s suspicions about Bachiashvili persisted, eventually leading to criminal charges against him by Georgian prosecutors just weeks after the court rulings.
Shortly after the European Union granted Georgia candidacy status in December, Ivanishvili announced his return to Georgian politics, months ahead of the critical parliamentary elections scheduled for October 26. On the campaign trail, Ivanishvili’s rhetoric has become increasingly extreme, warning of dire consequences should the opposition win and accusing the U.S. and Europe—labeled the “Global War Party”—of backing opposition leaders with the intent to reinstall former President Mikheil Saakashvili and drag Georgia into conflict with Russia.
