General white-collar crime
The field of crime General white-collar crime within the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) encompasses proceedings involving financial market offences (market abuse), which fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Confederation. It also covers international or intercantonal offences against property and of forgery of documents.
In relation to cases of market abuse, federal jurisdiction makes it possible to specialise in cases with high technical complexity and use analysts with specific expertise in financial markets. When dealing with these cases, cooperation with FINMA is especially close in order to exploit the available synergies and optimise the way in which the proceedings are conducted on both sides. At an international level, cooperation among prosecution authorities is made easier in cases of market abuse by the fact that jurisdiction is often mutually exclusive. In its prosecutions, the OAG focuses on the prosecution of insider offences, both by individual offenders and by ‘insider rings’.
In relation to offences against property, the OAG deals with cases that have a predominantly international or intercantonal dimension. These are proceedings where federal jurisdiction is optional or, where there is downstream money laundering, mandatory. Where jurisdiction is optional, the OAG follows the principle of the primacy of cantonal jurisdiction. The cases that the OAG takes over relate primarily to economic offences committed as part of a series which pose special challenges, particularly in view of the number of victims. The OAG has developed strategies and instruments to cope with these challenges. In addition, the OAG has implemented measures to deal with the constant advance of digitalisation.