Switzerland Has To 'Go Above And Beyond' To Implement Sanctions

2023-07-03 04:10:21

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Switzerland has been heavily criticised by G7 countries for its enforcement of sanctions. Is the criticism warranted? Illustration: Helen James / SWI swissinfo.ch Series Implementing Russian sanctions: Switzerland in the crosshairs, Episode 4:

The war in Ukraine should be a turning point for Switzerland to change its mindset around transparency, says financial crime and sanctions expert Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at RUSI, the world's oldest defence and security think-tank.

This content was published on July 3, 2023 July 3, 2023

Jessica covers the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to big global companies and their impact in Switzerland and abroad. She's always looking for a Swiss connection with her native San Francisco and will happily discuss why her hometown has produced some of the greatest innovations but can't seem to solve its housing crisis.

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Born in England, I've lived in Switzerland since 1994. I trained as a graphic designer in Zurich between 1997 – 2002. More recently I have moved on to work as photo editor and joined the team at swissinfo.ch in March 2017.

more from this author | multimedia Jessica Davis Plüss (text), Helen James (illustration), Jessica Davis Plüss, Helen James

Français (fr) la suisse doit «aller plus loin» pour persuader le monde qu'elle applique les sanctions
Pусский (ru) «в сфере санкций швейцария должна идти дальше и делать больше»

Switzerland has adopted 11 sanctions packages in step with the European Union since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but how well it's implementing sanctions is highly disputed.

Switzerland has frozen CHF 7.5 billion ($8.1 billion) in Russian assets, which the US Ambassador in Bern, Scott Miller, claimed in March 2023, without providing details, was only a fraction of what could be blocked. A few weeks later, the G7 ambassadors in Bern sent a letter to the Swiss government, criticising loopholes in the Swiss system that make it possible to evade sanctions. The Swiss government has continued to deflect the criticism and defend its sanctions record.

Sanctions and financial crime expert, Tom Keatinge, from the UK security think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), offers thoughts on how Switzerland can persuade the world that it's implementing sanctions.

SWI swissinfo.ch: Switzerland has been heavily criticise d by the United States and other G7 countries that it isn't doing enough to enforce sanctions. Do you agree?

Tom Keatinge (T.K.): Switzerland is in an interesting position. It is a jurisdiction that will remain guilty in the eyes of the world until a generation has passed. So, I think Switzerland has to go above and beyond to persuade people that it is on the side of the good guys and prove its innocence.

Switzerland has been under pressure from the G7, but the country is also in a difficult position to some extent because it's a taker of decisions in Brussels. In other words, it's not sitting around the table in Brussels, but constitutionally it has decided it will implement whatever is decided in Brussels when it comes to sanctions. That inevitably leads to a disconnect as it may end up having to implement measures with which it does not agree.

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Tom Keatinge is the founding director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the world's oldest defence and security think tank. Prior to joining RUSI in 2014, he was an investment banker for 20 years at J.P. Morgan. RUSI

SWI: The Swiss government has admitted that identifying beneficial owners of companies is a huge challenge in sanctions enforcement. There's now talk of creating a central register of beneficial owners. Would this help?

T.K.: Without a transparent company register your ability to implement sanctions effectively is significantly reduced. How can a country claim there isn't a connection between a sanctioned person and a company operating in their jurisdiction if they don't have all the information at their disposal? Journalists will quickly uncover that there is a link – this is a valuable service the media industry has played for a number of years.

I think a good company register, to quote a colleague in Latvia, is the“lifeboat that you rely on if you want to have confidence in sanctions implementation”. If you don't have a decent company register, then you're not going to persuade people that you're not guilty. We can debate whether they should be publicly accessible or not, but if the authorities can't access the necessary information, then they can't be doing their best to implement sanctions.

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