Internal investigations and cooperation with the authorities

Due diligence on conflict minerals and child labour

The counter-proposal to the Responsible Business Initiative, in force since 2022, imposes on companies that import or process minerals or metals from conflict-affected and high-risk areas, above the thresholds of the ordinance, obligations of due diligence in the supply chain and of reporting, with external verification.¹ The obligations concern above all the trade in tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, the minerals whose trade has financed armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere. The investigation opened by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in 2025 against a Zug trader in connection with the trade in Russian gold, described in Chapter III, shows that the gold trade attracts particular scrutiny.

Internal investigations and cooperation with the authorities

A trader in Zug that discovers indications of bribery or other misconduct in its business must decide how to respond. The usual response is an internal investigation, conducted by the company's legal and compliance function or by external lawyers, to establish the facts, to stop the misconduct, to take measures against the persons responsible and to assess the company's legal exposure. The investigation must respect the rights of the employees under Swiss employment and data protection law. The documents it produces may become the subject of disputes about legal privilege, which Swiss law recognises for the work of lawyers, with its application to the work of in-house counsel remaining uncertain.²

The company must then decide whether to report the misconduct to the authorities. Swiss law imposes no general obligation on companies to report their own offences and has no formal programme of deferred prosecution agreements as in the United States and the United Kingdom. The Office of the Attorney General has, however, taken cooperation into account in its summary penalty orders, so that self-reporting and cooperation can reduce the fine.³ Where the misconduct also concerns foreign jurisdictions, the company must coordinate its approach with the authorities of those jurisdictions, whose programmes for self-reporting and cooperation may offer substantial benefits. The Swiss prohibition of activities for a foreign state, described in Part D, must be observed in any cooperation with foreign authorities that involves the transmission of information from Switzerland.

Notes

1. Source as cited in the printed edition. ↩
2. Art. 321 para. 1 StGB (SR 311.0), swissrights.ch: professional secrecy of lawyers (Rechtsanwälte) and their auxiliaries; Art. 264 para. 1 lit. d StPO (SR 312.0), swissrights.ch: documents from a person's communications with a lawyer may not be seized if the lawyer is entitled to represent parties before Swiss courts under the Lawyers Act (BGFA) and is not accused in the same matter. ↩
3. LAW.CH, "ABB-Bestechungsskandal in Südafrika: BA büsst Unternehmen per Strafbefehl mit CHF 4 Mio.", 2 December 2022, law.ch: the Office of the Attorney General took ABB's cooperation into account as a mitigating factor ("Strafmindernd wurde die Kooperation der ABB berücksichtigt"), fine of CHF 4 million (maximum CHF 5 million); no compensation claim because ABB had already paid USD 104 million to South Africa in 2020. Monika Roth, "Strafbefehle und Deals der schweizerischen Bundesanwaltschaft mit Unternehmen", 27 November 2020, compliancedigital.de: the self-report of KBA-NotaSys SA of December 2015 led to a mitigated penalty. Transparency International Switzerland, "Strafbarkeit des Unternehmens", March 2021, transparency.ch, pp. 6 and 23: prosecutors often depend on the cooperation of the companies concerned; the OAG proposed deferred prosecution agreements in 2018 in the consultation on the revision of the StPO, which the Federal Council did not include in its draft. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.