Frank Quattrone, the former Credit Suisse Group investment banker who this week avoided prosecution on obstruction-of-justice charges, stands to collect more than $100 million from his former employer, according to press reports.Quattrone will receive $100 million to $120 million in overdue compensation as long as he abides by an agreement and doesn’t break the law for a year. Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, already paid for Quattrone’s legal costs in a three-year battle with prosecutors. Quattrone has also announced to make a comeback to the Wall Street . Quattrone is credited with bringing some of the hottest technology companies to the public markets. As Credit Suisse’s global head of technology banking from 1998 to 2002. Quattrone oversaw more initial public offerings, including share sales by Amazon.com and Cisco Systems, than any banker during the Internet boom of the 1990s. Quattrone was Silicon Valley’s top banker for much of his 23-year career and helped make CSFB the biggest underwriter and advisor to technology companies.But the government accused Quattrone of trying to block regulatory and grand jury probes into whether Credit Suisse exacted kickbacks from investors in exchange for access to the hottest stock offerings.Prosecutors in April 2003 accused Quattrone of obstruction of justice when he forwarded an e-mail to colleagues in December 2000 suggesting it was “time to clean up those files”.The deferred-prosecution deal came after US prosecutors struggled with a hung jury in Quattrone’s first trial and then saw his conviction in a second trial overturned on appeal.Following an appeals court’s March reversal of Quattrone’s 2004 conviction, talks began on an agreement that would avoid a third trial. Four days later, the Securities and Exchange Commission threw out a lifetime ban against Quattrone, and in May, industry regulator NASD dropped its charges.Quattrone joined CSFB in 1998, where as global head of technology banking he generated $5 billion in fees for the firm over five years that spanned the peak of the technology and Internet stock boom.
