In mid-October 2021, it became known about the "corrective" legislative initiative being prepared by the Swiss left bloc. According to the Socialists in Parliament, the next amendments to the law "On Countering the laundering /legalization of financial Assets" (Geldwäschereigesetz) have become almost inevitable.
Swiss lawyers and financial advisers are required to exercise "due diligence" in the same way as banks. But at the same time, if they establish trusts abroad, then these transactions do not fall under the mentioned money laundering law. Swiss lobbyists in March 2021 were able to achieve tighter control over the financial sector, but consultants again did not fall under the reforms. The main argument of the opponents of the law was that consultants do not directly manage the assets of their clients. Therefore, they were not affected by the requirement to report suspicious transactions and financial transactions to government authorities. A new leak of offshore data has pushed the parties to take active action.
According to ICIJ, lawyers and notaries from Switzerland used problems in the country's legislation to help rich and influential people hide their money from the tax service. From 2005 to 2016, at least 26 Swiss firms listed in the Pandora Papers provided services to clients whose offshore companies later appeared in financial crimes cases. Leaked files show that one of Switzerland's oldest firms, Fidinam Group, worked with a Panamanian law firm to create more than 7,000 shell companies for clients, including 13 people involved in the massive corruption scandal Operation Car Wash.
The Pandora's Archive contains information about more than 90 Swiss law and consulting companies, as well as notary offices, whose role in the offshore system is often not fully clear due to the fact that public attention is drawn to more prominent players in this field, including banks. The fact is that the latter must inform the Confederation authorities about suspicious financial transactions of their clients, but this requirement does not apply to consultants if they do not manage the fortunes of their clients. For this reason, in 2020, consultants' statements about suspicious financial activity accounted for about 2% of all applications filed in Switzerland.
It became known that in 2005-2016 at least 26 Swiss firms appearing in the "Pandora's Archive" provided services to clients whose offshore companies later became the object of investigation in order to find evidence of money laundering and other financial crimes. The revealed facts are likely to push Swiss parliamentarians to adopt a bill on tightening control over Swiss consulting this time.
