Legal and regulatory requirements
The numerous fraud scandals of the recent past have contributed to the political interest in Switzerland and overseas. The legislator reacted by the passing of new laws. Associations posit “soft laws” which find their way into the corporate governance guidelines of their members.
The common feature of these regulators is that the topic of economic crime is not dealt with in its entirety but only address individual aspects. In order to stem the risk of becoming a victim of economic crime, companies and organizations have the challenge of combining all these individual parts into a whole within the realms of their compliance efforts and fine tune with their risk management system.
In the table below you find a selection of the main requirements which companies and organizations and their respective organs must be aware of.
Criminal Liability of the company
(Art 102, Criminal Law Code)
Since Art 102, subparagraph 2, Criminal Law Code came into force on 1 July 2006, a company which does not meet all the appropriate organizational provisions to prevent the bribing of a public official or a private person, can be criminally liable and can be subject to a fine of up to five million Swiss Francs.
Internal Control System
(Art 728a, subparagraph 1, Public Law)
All annual financial statements which are created after 1 January 2008 and exceeding certain defined monetary limits, must have a superior internal control system. Internal control systems as they are typically configured today, unfortunately do not address economic crime in its entirety.
Risk Management
(Art 663b, subparagraph 12, Public Law)
As a consequence of the regulations mentioned above, the requirements for a professional risk management have also increased. We recommend to establish a risk portfolio which also addresses economic crime.
Various Guidelines on Corporate Governance
The association of Swiss companies, economiesuisse, in conjunction with SWX (Guideline with regard to information on Corporate Governance), has created the “Swiss Code of Best Practice for Corporate Governance”. Since then, a large number of companies and organizations have adopted these recommendations.