Bribery related to SECO IT contracts: four persons indicted
Bern, 01.10.2019 - The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) has filed an indictment with the Federal Criminal Court against a former SECO (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs) head of department in charge of procurement and three entrepreneurs. In particular, they are charged with active, resp. passive bribery in relation to the awarding of several hundred IT contracts by SECO in the total amount of around 99 million Swiss francs.
The OAG charged the former department head of SECO primarily with accepting bribes (art. 322quater of the Swiss Criminal Code (SCC)) and misconduct in public office (art. 314 SCC). Two entrepreneurs are primarily accused of criminal mismanagement (art. 158 SCC) and bribery (art. 322ter SCC). A third entrepreneur is indicted for bribery (art. 322ter SCC).
Unlawful awarding of no-bid contracts over the course of ten years
The focus of the accusation is on several hundred instances in which no-bid IT contracts were awarded by SECO to external IT companies in violation of applicable procurement law. The SECO head of department, responsible for procurement at the time, is accused of, among other things, having accepted bribes over the period of around ten years, from 2004 until 2014, from the representatives of various IT companies, by demanding and accepting undue advantages related to the awarding of IT contracts in the amount of more than 1,7 million Swiss francs. Such bribes included, among other things, invitations, event sponsoring, cash or gifts. In return, he awarded mostly no-bid IT contracts to companies favored by him, thus undermining competition and damaging the interests of SECO, which he was supposed to safeguard. The OAG estimates the invoice volume of the unlawfully awarded contracts at a total of 99 million Swiss francs. In retrospect, it is impossible to determine the price in line with the market of the goods and services, which were procured at an inflated price; making it thus impossible to calculate the actual amount of damage.
The three accused entrepreneurs are primarily charged with having repeatedly promised and granted the former department head of SECO undue advantages. In addition, two of the three accused entrepreneurs are also charged with repeated criminal mismanagement since the investigation results showed that, in their capacity as managers, they siphoned off company funds to offshore accounts using fictitious invoices. According to the insights from the criminal proceedings, they used the funds thus obtained for themselves but in particular also to pay for contributions to the former department head of SECO.
Development of criminal proceedings
The criminal proceedings by the OAG were opened in 2014 based on a criminal complaint filed by SECO against the former head of department and unknown persons. In 2015, it was joined with cantonal criminal proceedings conducted in parallel and in the further course, it was conducted against a total of ten accused. Of these, three entrepreneurs and a trustee were already sentenced with a final summary penalty order. With regards to another entrepreneur and his consultant, a ruling abandoning proceedings order was issued.
Given not only the large number of acts in violation of duty and the law, which occurred over the course of around ten years, but also the concomitant amount of evidence and documents as well as the important number of accused, the criminal proceedings proved time-consuming and tied up considerable resources. Today, case documents fill around 400 federal lever-arch files. In addition, Federal Office of Police fedpol investigators had to analyze several hundred thousand documents seized. Also, in addition to the ten accused, 30 persons providing information as well as witnesses were interrogated in Switzerland.
As usual, the OAG will announce sentence proposals during the main trial before the Federal Criminal Court. With the filing of the indictment, the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona is henceforth in charge of further informing the media. Until final conviction, the presumption of innocence applies.
Address for enquiries
Communication Service of the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland, T +41 58 464 32 40, info@ba.admin.ch
Publisher
Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland
http://www.ba.admin.ch/
