Legal challenges for monitorships in
Switzerland and practical lessons to be
learnt

The Guide to Monitorships - Fifth Edition: Part III: International monitorships and related issues Book chapter

While the United States set the stage for the imposition of compliance monitorships on corporations by government authorities, this arrangement has become increasingly popular in other jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and – closer to Switzerland – France. However, the Swiss legal system is not equipped with a tool that provides for the ordering of compliance monitorships, which are often attached as a requirement of some orders or agreed terms in the ambit of criminal proceedings, such as deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs), non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) and plea agreements. 

Until recently, foreign-ordered monitorships nonetheless played an increasingly important role in practice, as Switzerland-based entities have been subject to a reporting obligation on enhancement of their corporate compliance programmes.