Former Credit Suisse chief Tidjane Thiam has been embroiled in a bitter dispute with his Spac partner Edward Zeng after the Chinese entrepreneur’s firm sued Thiam’s company for allegedly refusing to pay $6mn in advisory fees.Thiam’s special-purpose company Freedom Acquisition is in settlement talks with Zeng’s company China Bridge Capital, two people with knowledge of the dispute said.
In August, China Bridge filed a lawsuit in New York that alleged Thiam’s company “failed and refused” to pay the fees even though Zeng’s company had introduced it to Complete Solaria — the US solar business with which it merged a month earlier — and carried out due diligence, financial modelling and advisory work.
The lawsuit, which has been reviewed by the Financial Times, underscores how quickly relations between the two men soured amid the dramatic rise and fall of the Spac boom.