SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Philippe M. Reich, Kaspar Projer, Samantha Salsench and Anna Zellweger, Baker McKenzie Switzerland AG
tions measures and has so far also aligned with EU delistings. Thus, the responsible Swiss agencies and courts will generally reject delisting requests for as long as the individual or entity concerned is designated by the corresponding international or foreign authority with which Switzerland has aligned. Designations should actually be challenged before the foreign or international authority that initially decided on the designation. As far as UN sanctions are concerned, delisting requests should be submitted to the Office of the Ombudsperson to the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al- Qaida Sanctions Committee and, for other sanctions regimes, the Focal Point for Delisting. The process for a designated person to domestically seek judicial review in Switzerland to overturn a Swiss listing should follow the Federal Act on Administra - tive Procedure (Administrative Procedure Act (APA), see Article 1 paragraph 2 let. a APA). In Nada v Swit- zerland , where the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights considered that the applicant had exhausted the domestic remedies available in Switzerland relating to the sanctions regime in ques - tion to claim his delisting, the applicant had pursued the following procedure: • submission of a request for the deletion of the name of the applicant from the annex to the respective Swiss sanctions ordinance to SECO; • following the dismissal of such request, lodging of an administrative appeal with the Federal Depart - ment of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER); • following the dismissal of such appeal, lodging of an appeal to the Federal Council; • the Federal Council ruled on the appeal and referred the applicant’s appeal to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court; and • the Swiss Federal Supreme Court decided on the admission and merits of the appeal (see para - graphs 30–52 of judgment of 12 September 2012, ECHR, Grand Chamber, case of Nada v Switzer - land). See also the recent delisting case law of the Federal Administrative Court, which dismissed the appeals
brought by Alexander Pumpyanskiy, Viktor Filip - povich Rashnikov and Dmitry Konov, all of whom are designated under Annex 8 to the Ukraine Ordinance. The judgments followed the EAER’s rejection of their respective delisting requests (Federal Administrative Court judgments B-4084/2023 of 18 March 2025, B-3584/2023 of 23 June 2025 and B-5313/2023 of 1 September 2025). In these judgments, the Federal Administrative Court emphasised that the Swiss authorities bear the bur - den of proving the facts that justify the individual’s inclusion in Annex 8 (and any sanctions imposed pur - suant to the EmbA), applying the standard of proof of preponderant plausibility. The court further held that the designated persons cannot rely on the pre - sumption of innocence, as sanctions are political in nature and have no, or only limited, punitive character (B-4084/2023 consideration 5.3; B-3584/2023 con - sideration 4.2; and B-5313/2023 consideration 4.3). Applying these principles, the court found that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that the grounds for the designation of Pumpyanskiy, Rashnikov and Konov continued to exist and therefore upheld the rejection of their delisting requests. 4.2 Remedies Margin of Appreciation of UN Member States for Delisting The responsible Swiss agencies and courts generally reject the delisting if the individual or entity concerned is mentioned on sanctions lists issued by the UN (or, in case of alignment with EU sanctions, the EU). See, in this regard, the reasoning of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in Nada v Switzerland in 4.1 Process . The Swiss Federal Supreme Court, when examining the question of the extent to which Switzerland is bound by the relevant UNSC resolutions and whether it has any margin of appreciation in implementing them, held that sanctions, including the names of those affected by them which are also notified to UN member states, afford UN member states no margin of appreciation in their implementation. For obtaining deletion from a sanctions list, the relevant sanctions committee provides a specific procedure, so that UN member states are debarred from deciding on their own on the delisting; Switzerland would thus be in breach of its obligations under the UN Charter were it
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