Logos of Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse in Basel. (Photo: AFP/VNA)

The prosecutor, based in the Swiss capital Bern, is looking into potential breaches of the country’s criminal law by government officials, regulators and executives at the two banks, which agreed on an emergency merger last month to avoid a meltdown in the country’s financial system.

It said in a statement that there were “numerous aspects of events around Credit Suisse” that warranted investigation and which needed to be analyzed to “identify any criminal offenses that could fall within the competence of the prosecutor.”

It gave no indication of any specific aspects of the merger agreement it might look into or how long the investigation might last.