ZURICH, June 6 (Reuters) - A group of Credit Suisse

bondholders holding $82 million worth of the failed bank's

Additional Tier 1 (AT1) debt have filed a lawsuit against

Switzerland seeking compensation, U.S. court filings on Thursday

showed.

Credit Suisse collapsed in 2023 and was taken over by rival

UBS in a rescue orchestrated by Swiss authorities. As part of

that operation, Swiss regulator FINMA wrote down about $17

billion of Credit Suisse's AT1s, angering bondholders.

Law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, representing

the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit had been filed in the U.S.

District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Switzerland's finance ministry declined to comment.

The face value of the AT1 bonds held by the plaintiffs

in the suit was over $82 million, the filing showed.

AT1 bonds act as a shock absorber if a bank's capital levels

fall below a certain threshold, and have been encouraged by

regulators since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

In a statement, Dennis Hranitzky, head of Quinn

Emanuel's sovereign litigation practice, said that the lawsuit

was seeking full compensation for the bondholders.

"Switzerland unnecessarily destroyed $17 billion of AT1

instruments and thereby unlawfully violated the property rights

of the holders of these instruments," Hranitzky said.

UBS last week in Switzerland completed

the merger

of the main parent companies of UBS and Credit Suisse.