The famous Swiss pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche had a key role – although involuntary – in bringing about the latest amendment to the Swiss Federal Act on Cartels, which entered into force on 1 April, 2004. When the company was hit with record fines of $500m (£283m) and €465m (£319m) for its participation in the vitamin cartel by the US and European authorities, the Swiss Competition Commission could do nothing about this: under the rules in place since 1995 the authorities only had power to impose monetary fines once a company’s specific conduct had been prohibited and the company, nevertheless, repeated the same conduct. Furthermore, according to general principles of Swiss administrative law, the authorities had neither the power to issue a decision prohibiting the cartel, given that Hoff-mann-La Roche had already stopped its participation in the vitamin cartel when the Swiss authorities learned about it, nor the power to impose monetary fines.
This situation led the former chairman of the Swiss Competition Commission to state: “In Switzerland, the first murder is for free.”
