Four years ago, in an op-ed published in Le Temps entitled “Faced with the Unbearable: A Moral and Legal Obligation”, Stefan Blättler, Attorney General of Switzerland, set out one of the priorities of his mandate. He wrote that “the commercialization of pillaged raw materials could constitute a war crime,” adding that his office was pursuing cases aimed at developing the case law. He continued: “Taking the reasoning one step further, we cannot rule out the possibility that pillage could constitute a predicate offense to money laundering.”
Four years later, to our knowledge, none of these proceedings has resulted in an indictment, and no new proceedings targeting an economic actor for its alleged contribution to international crimes have been announced. Yet the accountability of economic actors is the subject of unprecedented proceedings in several European countries, while one major case concerns activities conducted from Geneva.
BNP Paribas: Geneva at the heart of the case
In 2014, BNP Paribas pleaded guilty in the United States to violating U.S. sanctions targeting, among others, Sudan. The bank agreed to pay nearly $9 billion in penalties.
A civil case was subsequently brought by Sudanese victims. In October 2025, a federal jury in New York found BNP Paribas civilly liable and awarded more than $20 million to three Sudanese plaintiffs. This was a civil judgment, not a criminal conviction for genocide or crimes against humanity.
However, the banking operations at the heart of the case had been conducted by BNP Paribas’ Swiss subsidiary, based in Geneva. Between 1997 and 2011, it maintained a correspondent banking relationship with the Sudanese government and the country’s main banks. This is why the U.S. judge decided to apply Swiss law to the dispute, considering that the facts were most closely connected to Switzerland. This raises a question: when banking activities conducted from Geneva may have contributed to the capabilities of a regime accused of countless international crimes, including genocide, why are the competent Swiss judicial authorities not examining the facts?
Proceedings in France, but not in Switzerland
This question is all the more relevant because French judicial authorities have opened criminal proceedings concerning the same facts. In 2020, a judicial investigation was opened against BNP Paribas for complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and money laundering, following a complaint filed in 2019 by Sudanese victims against the bank and its subsidiary. According to the complainants, they knowingly provided banking services to the Sudanese government between 2002 and 2008 despite international sanctions, enabling the regime to finance its operations during the atrocities in Darfur.
According to internal documents seized from the bank’s Geneva offices at the request of French investigating judges, BNP Paribas allegedly continued its operations with the Sudanese regime with full knowledge of the crimes being committed. The French investigation remains ongoing.
The Swiss Government intervenes in support of BNP Paribas
While French judicial authorities are investigating, the Swiss Government has itself intervened, although perhaps not in the way one might have expected, in the U.S. civil proceedings mentioned above. In September 2025, it sent a letter to the New York court arguing that the bank’s disputed transactions were lawful under Swiss civil, banking and sanctions law. In May 2026, it reiterated this position before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by filing an amicus curiae brief in support of the bank’s position, after BNP Paribas appealed the judgment against it.
The Government is entitled to defend its interpretation of Swiss law before a foreign court. However, the suggestion that the law applicable to banking activity is limited to civil, banking and sanctions law is highly questionable. Seven organizations, Civitas Maxima, ACAT-Switzerland, ECCHR, InterJust, the International Commission of Jurists, Peter & Moreau and Swiss ADR, have now also intervened before the U.S. Court of Appeals in an amicus curiae brief filed last Friday.
The amicus recalls that Swiss law is not limited to private law. It also criminalizes international crimes, including complicity, and, under certain conditions, provides for the criminal liability of companies.
Article 25 of the Swiss Criminal Code allows for complicity to be established where the assistance provided facilitates the commission of an offense. This reasoning was, in fact, recognized in 2015 by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland in the Argor-Heraeus case, concerning gold suspected of having been pillaged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The question, then, is whether the Swiss Government should take into account the full body of applicable law, or adopt a fragmented interpretation in order to defend certain interests of its financial sector at the expense of the rest.
A strong European trend
The same amicus curiae also examines developments across Europe. Companies are no longer necessarily considered by prosecutors to be disconnected from crimes committed in conflict zones when they may have contributed to them.
In France, Lafarge and several of its former executives were recently convicted of financing terrorism in connection with payments made to armed groups in Syria, while proceedings for complicity in crimes against humanity are ongoing. In Sweden, the trial of former Lundin Energy executives for alleged war crimes linked to the company’s oil activities in Sudan, the longest trial in Swedish judicial history, concluded in May 2026. The judgment, expected soon, will be highly significant whatever the outcome.
The independence of the Attorney General of Switzerland
It is in this context that Stefan Blättler’s words, and his stated intention to advance judicial practice in Switzerland, take on particular significance.
The response to the conduct in Switzerland of certain economic actors should depend neither on financial interests nor on foreign-policy considerations. It is a matter for the competent judicial authorities, acting on the basis of the facts and the law. Fortunately, in Switzerland, those authorities are independent of political power.
The obligation referred to by the Attorney General in 2022 remains more relevant than ever. It is moral. It is legal. And it calls for action.
The article first appeared in French on Le Temps on the 31st of August 2026
Photo: BNP Paribas premises at Quai de l’Île, Geneva, 25 October 2020. © Guilhem Vellut / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.