International Instruments
Switzerland supports various international instruments aimed at fighting corruption and is actively involved in the further development of these measures.
The OECD Convention on the fight against the bribery of foreign public officers in international business transactions
The 36 industrialised nations of the OECD and 8 further states (Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Russia and South Africa) have signed the Convention of 1997 on combating bribery of foreign officials in international business transactions. On this basis they have made amendments to their legislation in a coordinated action and made the bribery of foreign public officials a punishable offence. A far-reaching monitoring procedure has been set up to ensure that the Convention is implemented and applied in all participating states. The OECD country report on Switzerland was published and presented at a media conference in Bern in 2005. SECO has the lead role in representing Switzerland in the relevant OECD committee.
Evaluation of Switzerland, Phase 4
The OECD Working Group on Bribery regularly conducts reviews of signatory countries to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. These reviews serve the purpose of assessing the level of implementation and enforcement of the Convention. This is the fourth time that Switzerland has gone through such a review (referred to as phase-four country monitoring). On 27 March, the OECD published a country monitoring report on Swiss efforts to combat corruption abroad, including recommendations for Switzerland. The OECD welcomes the fact that Switzerland has convicted six people and five companies for bribery of foreign public officials since 2012. It also applauds the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS) for its role in detecting cases of corruption abroad in connection with money laundering. At the same time, the OECD calls for stricter penalties for companies as well as greater legal safeguards for whistleblowers in the private sector.
