Market integrity and enforcement

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The rules against insider dealing and market manipulation in the Financial Market Infrastructure Act apply to securities admitted to trading on a Swiss trading venue. Tokens that qualify as securities and are traded on a Swiss DLT trading facility or another venue fall within those rules, whereas payment tokens traded on crypto exchanges fall outside them. The integrity of crypto markets therefore depends to a large extent on the rules of the exchanges themselves and on the anti-money-laundering supervision of their operators.

FINMA's enforcement against unlicensed crypto activities has been regular since 2017. It has closed providers that accepted deposits without a licence, issued warnings about fraudulent platforms and placed several on its warning list of companies that may be conducting unauthorised activities.¹ It has also pursued licensed institutions for deficiencies in their anti-money-laundering controls. Weaknesses in the anti-money-laundering defences of one of the early brokers of Zug led FINMA to give an unfavourable prognosis on its application for a banking licence, which the broker then withdrew, as Part G mentioned. Enforcement has contributed to the reputation of the Swiss framework as serious, even as it has led some providers to move to less demanding jurisdictions.

Notes

FINMA, press release "FINMA closes down coin providers and issues warning about fake cryptocurrencies", 19 September 2017, finma.ch: three providers of the "E-Coin" liquidated for unauthorised deposit-taking, three further companies placed on the warning list, eleven further investigations; FINMA warning list, finma.ch/en/finma-public/warnungen/warning-list. ↩

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 September 2025.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Rechtsanwalt/Attorney-at-Law

I am a Swiss attorney-at-law and also admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong and in England & Wales, with almost 25 years of experience.

Together with my multilingual team, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and French native speakers, I advise companies and their owners from around the world on the full range of banking, corporate, commercial and tax law matters in Switzerland, including international tax planning, fiduciary services, and legal family office services including immigration & relocation or real estate investments. My practice has a particular focus on clients from growth and frontier markets in Greater China, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and I equally advise clients from Europe and North America. Through an affiliated Swiss trust company, we also take care of the incorporation and ongoing administration of their companies and other structures, including accounting, tax returns and corporate secretarial services, and I serve as a professional director where required. With the support of a network of first-class cooperation partners, I also implement solutions worldwide.

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Market integrity and enforcement

Notes

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