The fall from grace of UBS has been one of the most dramatic stories ever seen in global banking. Of all the banks to have survived the financial crisis, UBS has been hurt the most and its previously stellar reputation is in tatters. Once the crowning glory of Swiss banking, UBS's fall has shaken the foundations of the country's centuries-old private banking model, set the Swiss government at loggerheads with other governments and its own courts, and caused uproar within this most conservative of societies.
Since it first announced the closure of an in-house hedge fund in May 2007, UBS's troubles multiplied to such an extent that it emerged as the poster-boy for everything that clients, investors, regulators, governments and counterparties did not want a financial institution to be. Its subprime losses - eventually totalling a staggering $50bn - revealed that an army of risk managers had been looking the wrong way, allowed to do so by a dysfunctional management structure which meant that neither senior managers nor the board saw the danger until too late.