Ex-Swiss Banking Chief Convicted in $101M Kuwaiti Bribery Scheme

Pierre Mirabaud, the former head of Switzerland’s banking lobby, was convicted Tuesday of bribery and aggravated money laundering over SFr82.3mn ($101.7mn) in payments to a Kuwaiti official.

Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona handed Mirabaud a two-year suspended prison sentence, according to the Financial Times. The former senior partner of the Geneva private bank that carries his family name made the payments in exchange for decisions to place Kuwaiti state pension assets with the bank and its funds.

The retired banker admitted the facts during Tuesday’s hearing.

“[He made] a very grave error of judgment,” Mirabaud told the court, saying he had personally earned $1.8mn from the arrangement.

The court said the payments went to Fahad Al-Rajaan, the former director-general of Kuwait’s Public Institution for Social Security. The Kuwaiti fund had $595.3mn parked in the investment vehicles by late 2012, the court found. Mirabaud was also convicted of over 122 transfers worth almost SFr77mn that prosecutors said were meant to obscure the criminal origin of the payments.

Mirabaud was president of the Swiss Bankers Association from 2003 to 2009, placing him atop the country’s banking establishment during part of the period covered by the case. He was a partner at the firm for 30 years before becoming a consultant.

Prosecutors said the payments ran from 2000 to 2012, according to Reuters. The indictment described Mirabaud, 77, as aware of what he was doing.

“He was aware of the risk associated with these payments and accepted the possible consequences should that risk materialise,” the document said.

Corruption and money laundering in Switzerland can carry up to five years in prison. Prosecutors sought 24 months, citing Mirabaud’s age, his lack of prior convictions, and his cooperation. Proceedings lasted half a day under a simplified procedure in which the defendant accepts the facts and a proposed sentence goes to the court. He was ordered to pay SFr82,000 in costs and faces a two-year probation.

Al-Rajaan ran the Kuwaiti pension fund for almost three decades. Kuwait later convicted him of corruption and embezzlement in absentia. He died in London in 2022. His estate is among the defendants in a separate $1bn civil case brought by the pension fund at London’s High Court, which named asset manager Man Group and Swiss bank EFG. Both deny wrongdoing.

The conviction lands as Swiss banking works to shed years of money-laundering scrutiny that has dogged the sector’s biggest names.