SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Roman Huber, Cristina Ess and Lea Ruckstuhl, Kellerhals Carrard
• fully implemented 11 recommendations; • partially implemented 18 recommendations; and • not implemented 17 recommendations. The OECD Working Group was very pleased with some of the progress made but regrets that Switzerland has not deployed sufficient efforts to implement the recommendations of Phase 4 – in particular, those that also concern whistle- blower protection. In the meantime, Switzerland has adopted an Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2021–2024, struc - tured around the three pillars “prevention”, “detection and law enforcement”, and “interna - tional cooperation”. The anti-corruption activi - ties are co-ordinated by the Interdepartmental Working Group (IDWG) on Combating Corrup - tion . Based on the OECD standards for quality and effectiveness of the strategic framework for combating corruption, Switzerland meets 53% of the criteria for regulation and 17% for imple - mentation, compared to the OECD average of 45% and 36% respectively. There is room for improvement in the following areas. • Switzerland does not fulfil any criteria on regulations and practice to mitigate corrup - tion risks related to lobbying. • Related to conflict of interest, Switzerland fulfils 33% of criteria on regulation and does not fulfil any criteria on implementation, com -
pared to the OECD average of 76% and 40%, respectively. • Switzerland fulfils 60% of criteria on regula - tion and 29% of criteria on implementation, compared to the OECD average of 73% and 58%, respectively regarding political finance. 9.2 Likely Changes to the Applicable Legislation of the Enforcement Body The Federal Assembly agreed in spring 2021 on new rules aiming to establish transparency regulations for parties’ election and voting com - mittees. Individual donations to parties and committees must be disclosed if they exceed CHF15,000. Campaign funds must also be declared if the voting or election campaign has a budget of more than CHF50,000. In addition, monetary donations from abroad and anonymous dona- tions are prohibited. These new rules have been applied for the first time during the National Council elections in autumn 2023. In 2020, the Federal Council adopted a strategy against corruption for the period 2021–24. The strategy is aimed primarily at the federal admin - istration and defines objectives and measures in the areas of prevention, prosecution and inter - national co-operation. It was developed by the Interdepartmental Working Group on Combating Corruption, a federal administration The working group co-ordinates the fight against corruption in Switzerland with the cantons, civil society and the private sector. The strategy will be reviewed and updated in 2024.
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