SWITZERLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Paul Gully-Hart, Schellenberg Wittmer Ltd
Switzerland by TI was slightly reduced to take into account a number of unresolved issues, including a lack of transparency in political lob - bying, the financing of political parties and the management of conflicts of interest between the public and private sectors. A recent survey conducted by a prestigious aca - demic institution ( Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Zürich ) has confirmed the high level of trust of the Swiss population in its major institutions, ie, the federal government, the federal parliament, the courts, the police and the armed forces. Corruption-related convictions in Switzerland Between 2021 and 2023, the Federal Office of Statistics had registered 52 convictions for cor - ruption related offences in Switzerland. The number of convictions has remained rela - tively stable, in spite of the strengthening of anti- corruption legislation. Many corruption-related criminal investigations and proceedings are focused on transnational corruption and thus, Switzerland is considered (together with the United States) as one of the main enforcers of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Convention). Swiss experts in criminal law and criminology have expressed doubts as to whether the offi - cial number of convictions truthfully reflects the number of corruption-related offences with a jurisdictional link to Switzerland. It has been suggested that, in many instances, potentially unlawful conduct has not been reported. The lack of incentives for self-reporting potential bribery has been identified as one of the flaws of Switzerland’s anti-corruption model.
Furthermore, official statistics do not conflate convictions for corruption and for money laun - dering although corruption is frequently a predi - cate offence of money laundering. Main cases of corruption since 2021 Here are a few significant cases involving cor - ruption-related offences in Switzerland since 2021. • In the Canton of Zurich, public officials put together a scheme in 2020 and 2021 whereby bribes were covertly paid to intermediaries in exchange for facilitating the granting of driv - ing licences. • In the City of Bienne, public officials granted immigration visas to female foreigners in exchange for cash or sexual gratification. The corrupt scheme was implemented over a number of years but was only reported by the victims in late 2023. • At the end of 2023, Trafigura, a large trader in commodities based in Geneva, was indicted for having bribed public officials in Angola. This will be the first time that a Swiss court (the Federal Criminal Court or FCC) will be judging a corporate entity for the corruption of foreign public officials. • In March 2023, the Court of Appeal of the Canton of Geneva confirmed the convic - tion of Beny Steinmetz for having corruptly influenced the awarding of mining rights in the Republic of Guinea. Mr Steinmetz was sentenced to three years of imprisonment (partly suspended) and has appealed this judgment to the Swiss Federal Tribunal which is Switzerland’s Supreme Court. • On 30 September and 1 October 2024, the former Head of financial transactions for Europe, Africa and the Middle East of Gunvor, a large commodity trader based in Geneva, was on trial before the FCC on charges of
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