Abstract

During the 1970s and 1980s, economic and financial crime turned into a societal issue in Switzerland. The perpetrators of white-collar crime often enjoyed total impunity: legal proceedings were very time consuming, authorities in charge of judicial investigation were under-resourced. This paper investigates how the political and judicial authorities responded to this challenge. By the end of the 1980s, a strong shift towards a more specialized handling of financial crime by public prosecutors occurred. Specialized departments were set up and judges were trained in commercial matters. This transformation breached with a long tradition of leniency and inefficient judicial handling of economic crime. Based on archival evidence, this paper sheds new light on the drivers of an institutionalization process which affected not only the Swiss financial centre, but also all the global judicial proceedings which relied on it. Professionalizing the response to financial crime also aimed at restoring the corporate reputation of Swiss financial firms, in a context of growing competition among offshore financial centers.

摘要

在 1970 和 1980 年代，经济和金融犯罪在瑞士变成了一个社会问题。白领犯罪的肇事者往往逍遥法外：法律诉讼非常耗时，负责司法调查的当局资源不足。本文调查了政治和司法当局如何应对这一挑战。到 1980 年代末，发生了向更专业的检察官处理金融犯罪的强烈转变。成立了专门的部门，并对法官进行了商业事务方面的培训。这种转变违背了长期以来对经济犯罪从宽处理和司法处理效率低下的传统。根据档案证据，本文揭示了制度化进程的驱动因素，该进程不仅影响了瑞士金融中心，而且也影响了依赖它的所有全球司法程序。在离岸金融中心之间竞争日益激烈的背景下，专业化应对金融犯罪还旨在恢复瑞士金融公司的企业声誉。