Swiss Court Acquits Four in Gazprom Case but New Law May Have Led to a Different Outcome

After about seven years of investigation into the Gazprom corruption case, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court recently acquitted four individuals of corruption charges related to the construction of a gas pipeline because it determined that the Gazprom executives involved were not foreign officials. In a guest article, Shelby R. du Pasquier and Miguel Oural, partners at Swiss firm Lenz & Staehelin, discuss the implications of the acquittals. The heart of the case, they explain, lies in a series of payments totaling $7 million, made by Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery, a company acquired by Siemens in 2003, to senior executives of Gazprom. SIT entered into a settlement with Swiss authorities in 2013, a questionable decision in light of these recent acquittals. Meanwhile, new Swiss legislation criminalizing certain instances of commercial bribery could lead to drastically different outcomes for companies and defendants in similar situations going forward. See “Siemens’ Debarment Highlights the Crux of the Brazilian Business Challenge: Corruption Is Clear, But Anti-Corruption Law Is Ambiguous” (Mar. 19, 2014).

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