Peter Brabeck, former CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nestlé and one of the 300 richest Swiss, has once again tried his hand at being a visionary – and failed spectacularly. His involvement in Kasperskian AG, a new type of caviar farm in Valais, where the sturgeons no longer had to be killed to harvest the caviar, turned out to be a costly bad investment with a bitter aftermath. Despite ambitious plans for sustainable caviar production in 2015, Kasperskian AG was liquidated in mid-2019.

Although he controlled the fate of the company as an investor and member of the Board of Directors, he was looking for someone to blame for the bankruptcy – after all, the famous Peter Brabeck could not be to blame for the downfall. Brabeck found this culprit in the former managing director of Kasperskian, who left the company in 2017. Brabeck sued him for damages of over CHF 3 million because he had made the search for key people more difficult. The crux of the matter: the missing key people were all found seamlessly. In a legal dispute that has been ongoing since 2019, a major showdown was due to take place next week at the Leuk district court. A whole week was scheduled for the questioning of witnesses and Mr Brabeck.

In the course of preparing for the trial, Attorney-at-law Thomas Wehrli was able to support the managing director and his lawyer Patrick Häberlin and was able to bring about a surprising turnaround: Brabeck-Letmathe quietly withdrew the lawsuit. A remarkable retraction for someone who had previously used big words in his search for those responsible. Perhaps he realised that the real person responsible for the debacle was not to be found in the courtroom, but in his own office. Or perhaps he had simply realised that it is dangerous to throw stones while sitting in a glass house: Who knows what might have come to light during the questioning of the witnesses…