The economic organisation applauded the “significant level of enforcement” undertaken by the country in convicting six individuals and five companies since 2012 – this included 137 active investigations into money laundering and foreign bribery in 2016, up from 24 in 2011.
However, the OECD thinks that the country still needs to apply tougher sanctions and prosecute more companies.
As part of this work, it suggested that the country “urgently adopt an appropriate legal framework to protect private sector whistleblowers”.
Further to this, the group recommended that more work be done on sanctions in instances of foreign bribery to ensure that they are “effective, proportionate and dissuasive”.
While the OECD praised Switzerland’s current engagement in mutual legal assistance (MLA), the report called for urgent action to be taken in reforming legislation to remove “certain procedural barriers” and help to formalise “proactive MLA”.
The last recommendation provided by group was that more should be done by the country to publish concluded foreign bribery cases.
