SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Roman Huber, Cristina Ess and Lea Ruckstuhl, Kellerhals Carrard
7.5 Recent Landmark Investigations or Decisions The following selection of landmark investiga - tions and decisions involve bribery or corruption in Switzerland. Alstom Case In November 2011, after three years of investi - gation, the OAG issued a summary punishment order against Alstom Network Schweiz AG for breach of Article 102, paragraph 2 of the SCC in conjunction with Article 322septies of the SCC. The OAG fined the company CHF2.5 million and imposed a compensatory claim of CHF36.4 mil - lion. Alstom Network Schweiz AG ‒ the company responsible for the compliance of the group but not otherwise involved in the bribe payments – was convicted of not having taken all neces - sary and reasonable organisational precautions to prevent bribery of foreign public officials in Latvia, Tunisia and Malaysia. The investigation into the parent company, Alstom SA, was closed without punishment (based on Article 53 of the SCC) in return for a reparation payment. SIT Case In November 2013, the OAG concluded a crimi - nal investigation into the Swedish company Sie - mens Industrial Turbomachinery (SIT). The case concerned illegal payments to senior executives at Gazprom in relation to a contract for gas tur - bines for the pipeline linking Russia’s Yamal pen - insula to Western Europe. The investigation was closed, based on Article 53 of the SCC, after SIT admitted inadequate enforcement of compliance regulations in relation to Yamal pipeline projects and paid reparations of CHF125,000 in the form of a donation to the International Committee of the Red Cross. SIT also paid compensation of USD10.6 million for unlawfully obtained profits.
As for the individuals involved, two years later the Federal Criminal Court (FCC) issued an acquittal on the grounds that the Gazprom sen - ior executives who received the commissions were not public officials in the sense of Article 322septies of the SCC. Fertiliser Case By a summary punishment order of 31 May 2016, the OAG convicted the Swiss subsidiary of the Swiss agro-business multinational enterprise Ameropa of failure to take reasonable and neces - sary organisational measures to prevent corrupt payments to foreign public officials and ordered it to pay a fine of CHF750,000 for the corrupt payment of USD1.5 million to a senior Libyan official (ie, the Minister for Oil) in exchange for the right to build a fertiliser plant in Libya. Construction 1 Case The Construction 1 case concerns charges of bribing foreign public officials against a former senior executive of a Canadian construction company. Inducements were given to the son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in order to secure contracts that were valued at more than USD21 million and generated assets worth more than EUR70 million. The former executive was the beneficial owner of compa - nies that allegedly made illicit profits of more than EUR30 million. After launching a criminal investigation on 11 May 2011 against the former executive, the OAG filed a simplified-procedure indictment against the Canadian group and its former executive on 18 July 2014. On 1 October 2014, the FCC upheld the judgment recommended by the OAG. With regard to another aspect of the procedure (ie, retrocessions to the senior executive), the Canadian company was acknowledged as the injured party in this case. The FCC held that the
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