Swiss multinational enterprises and transnational corruption: Management matters

In 2016, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland sanctioned a Swiss corporation for having bribed a Libyan Minister. The same year, it opened a criminal proceeding against the Swiss bank BSI for its involvement in the corruption scandals surrounding the Malaysian company 1MDB. Swiss corporations are also currently under investigation in the Brazilian Petrobras scandal. At the international level, anti-corruption treaties encourage states to make corporations criminally liable for transnational corruption. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises provide a detailed standard as to the management that corporations should adopt in order to prevent transnational corruption. This article aims to clarify the OECD due diligence standard. It presents the Swiss emerging practice regarding corporate criminal liability for transnational corruption offences and compares the conditions under which management deficiencies trigger criminal liability in Switzerland, in the United Kingdom, and in the United States