SWITZERLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Marc Hassberger and Jeffrey Connor, Chabrier Avocats LLC
Building a 2026-ready compliance programme The recent cases define the attributes of an adequate compliance framework under Swiss expectations for 2026. Trading companies must implement rigorous pro - cedures covering the entire life cycle of third-party relationships: from onboarding to termination. This entails enhanced due diligence, beneficial-ownership verification, and comprehensive adverse-media and sanctions screening before and during engagement. Contractual terms should set clear scopes of work, include audit and termination rights, and ensure fees are proportionate and paid only to approved accounts in the correct jurisdiction after verifiable performance. These elements mirror the shortcomings identified in Gunvor (2019) and Glencore (2024). Equally important is documentation discipline. Swiss prosecutors apply a practical rule: compliance actions must be contemporaneously recorded to be credit - able. Files should include due diligence reports, approval rationales, and escalation notes. In rela - tion to agents in countries where they do business, companies should require regular detailed and writ - ten reports on the agent’s activity. In enforcement, compensation order ( Ersatzforderung ) often equals the economic advantage gained – thus, documen - tary evidence of rejected or remediated transactions can materially reduce exposure. In effect, if compli - ance steps are not properly documented, prosecutors and judges will give little or no weight to them when assessing organisational adequacy after the fact. Governance must extend beyond compliance teams. Boards should demonstrate active engagement with integrity risks through minutes reflecting challenge and oversight. OECD Phase 4 monitoring stressed “tone from the top” and measurable management accountability. Compliance functions must be prop - erly resourced and empowered to block transactions independently – a standard reinforced by Transpar - ency Switzerland’s 2024 guidance on organisational adequacy. In addition, anti-bribery, sanctions, and anti-money laundering (AML) controls must operate in an inte - grated risk framework. Many Swiss traders encoun -
tered issues where sanctions-screening gaps mir - rored bribery-risk failures. Prosecutors increasingly view fragmented control systems as organisational weaknesses. The expectation for 2026 is a com - plete, cross-functional framework ensuring escalation across compliance domains. Finally, financial institutions have become de facto enforcers. Swiss and international banks, already subject to stringent AML and sanctions obligations, have begun to apply enhanced due diligence expec - tations to commodity trading clients in response to recent enforcement cases. Trading companies under investigation, or operating with weak governance over intermediaries, increasingly face restrictions such as frozen credit lines, delayed trade-finance approvals, or outright off-boarding. In practice, therefore, “adequate organisation” is no longer just a legal defence against prosecution, but a prerequisite for maintaining essen - tial banking relationships. Multi-jurisdictional enforcement Swiss enforcement has become profoundly interna - tional. The Gunvor 2024 case demonstrated parallel action by Swiss and US authorities, with the OAG’s penalty order issued the same day the US Department of Justice announced a USD661 million FCPA resolu - tion – a high level of co-ordination. In March 2025, the OAG publicly confirmed its partici - pation in a joint task force with the UK Serious Fraud Office and France’s Parquet National Financier (PNF) to co-ordinate investigations into cross-border corrup - tion in extractive and trading industries. This reflects the co-operative model promoted by the OECD Work - ing Group on Bribery, under which Switzerland has pledged enhanced mutual legal assistance and infor - mation-sharing. Historically, Switzerland was criticised by the OECD for limited enforcement of foreign-bribery offences (see OECD Phase 3 and Phase 4 evaluations). The surge of corporate convictions between 2019 and 2025 is widely interpreted as a response to that scru - tiny and evidence to international partners that Swit - zerland is now enforcing its law in substance, not only in form.
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