Former top Swiss banker convicted for corruption

By Emma Farge

GENEVA, Sept 8 (Reuters) - A former partner at Swiss private bank Mirabaud & Cie, who once headed Switzerland's banking lobby, admitted paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes and received a suspended two-year prison sentence on Tuesday.

Swiss federal prosecutors allege that former partner Pierre Mirabaud made hundreds of payments totalling 82.3 million Swiss francs ($101.7 million) to a Kuwaiti government official between 2000 and 2012 in exchange for bringing $595.2 million worth of business to the bank, the indictment showed.

"He was aware of the risk associated with these payments and accepted the possible consequences should that risk materialise," the document said of Mirabaud, 77, who was head of the Swiss Bankers Association from 2003 until 2009.

Proceedings at the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, Switzerland, lasted just half a day.

Mirabaud, who retired from the bank in 2009 and continued as a consultant until 2012, has accepted the key facts of the corruption and money laundering case, the indictment said.

His lawyer Saverio Lembo said the two-year suspended sentence reflected Mirabaud's cooperation with authorities throughout the long course of the investigation.

"He now accepts the consequences of his actions, in accordance with the principles of individual responsibility that he holds dear," Lembo said.

The bank, which is not a party to the case, declined to comment.

The Kuwaiti official, now deceased, was convicted in absentia of corruption and embezzling public money in Kuwait.

PROSECUTORS CITE MIRABAUD'S AGE, COOPERATION IN SENTENCING

Corruption and money laundering in Switzerland can carry a fine or a prison sentence of up to five years. But prosecutors sought just 24 months, citing Mirabaud's age, lack of prior convictions and his cooperation with investigators.

Generally, sentences are suspended in Switzerland if there is no perceived risk of the crime being repeated.

Bank Mirabaud, founded in 1819 in Geneva, is one of Switzerland's oldest private banks and is now run by the seventh generation of the founding family. 

Swiss financial market regulator FINMA said in 2024 it had confiscated 12.7 million francs of unlawfully generated profits from the bank over violations of financial market law and breaches of its money-laundering obligations. 

The watchdog said its investigation concerned business relationships that at times accounted for almost 10% of the bank's entire assets under management and was connected with a businessman accused of tax evasion who has since died. FINMA did not disclose the identity of any individuals involved.

Mirabaud said at the time it had been fully cooperative in helping FINMA to resolve the case, which it said "settles the past".

($1 = 0.8095 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Ariane Luthi in Zurich; Editing by Susan Fenton and Joe Bavier)