I'm no expert in the field, but my understanding is that CS was, in fact, rather too big for the nation of Switzerland to bail out. Their two biggest banks (CS

I'm no expert in the field, but my understanding is that CS was, in fact, rather too big for the nation of Switzerland to bail out. Their two biggest banks (CS and UBS) do an awful lot of non-Swiss business, so that is possible for them in a way that it would not be for a nation like the U.S.A. So, they made UBS take it (all accounts are that UBS was not interested until the Swiss government told them that yes they were interested). Also, UBS has more skill at running a bank than the Swiss government, although arguably the Swiss government might have had more skill at running a bank than Credit Suisse.