D-35-01 R OAR-ASA

Federal Court decisions 7B_158/2023 and 7B_874/2023 of 6 August 2024 were handed down in the same case, by the2nd Criminal Court, in the context of a sealing procedure. The first, intended for publication, seems convincing to us, unlike the second. For once - and this is important - the criminal proceedings were not opened for money laundering but for breach of the law against unfair competition. In short, the Zurich Public Prosecutor's Office suspects an individual, who is understood to[...]

The Federal Administrative Court (FAT) has confirmed that comparis.ch AG (Comparis) qualifies as an insurance intermediary within the meaning of Art. 40 para. 1 ISA on the basis of the services it offers and must therefore be entered in FINMA's public register of unrelated intermediaries (ruling B-5886/2023 of 5 July 2024). In September 2023, FINMA decided that Comparis was an insurance intermediary within the meaning of Art. 40 ISA and ordered it to be entered in the register of non-related[...]

The Swiss Federal Supreme Court has upheld the immediate dismissal of an employee due to his careless application of the bank's anti-money laundering rules (ruling 4A_67/2023 of 12 June 2024). The employee had been working in the Panamanian branch of a Ticino bank since July 2012. He received two warnings, the first on 19 June 2015 following an angry outburst towards an employee in the Legal & Compliance department, and the second on 24 July 2017 for his carelessness in[...]

On 26 July 2024, FINMA published Supervisory Notice 06/2024 on stablecoins. The communication covers the legal categorisation of stablecoins, the application of the anti-money laundering provisions, FINMA's practice with regard to default risk guarantees and the associated risks. This communication, which does not really contain anything new, is nevertheless a useful compendium of the Authority's practice developed since the publication of the Supplement to the Practical Guide for reporting issues relating to initial coin offerings (ICOs) on 11 September 2019.[...]