LAUSANNE. The Office of the Attorney General has opened a criminal inquiry into the award of federal procurement contracts worth an estimated 120 million francs, confirming weeks of speculation and placing the rules of public purchasing under the sharpest scrutiny they have faced in a generation.
The inquiry, prosecutors said, targets suspected unfair competitive practices and possible disloyal management in connection with a series of information technology and consulting contracts awarded by two federal offices between 2021 and 2024. No individuals have been named, and the office stressed that the opening of proceedings establishes suspicion, not guilt.
The legal frame is unusual. Rather than proceeding under the classic bribery provisions, which require proof of an undue advantage offered to an official, the inquiry rests on provisions criminalising the distortion of competition in procurement and on breach of trust. Specialists read that choice as a signal that investigators believe the tenders were shaped, not bought: specifications allegedly written so narrowly that only one supplier could qualify.
The affair surfaced through a whistleblower report to the Federal Audit Office, which flagged a pattern of contracts in which evaluation criteria changed after expressions of interest were received. The audit office's interim note, later obtained by journalists, counted seventeen contracts across the two offices sharing what it called structural fingerprints of tailored tendering. Parliament's finance delegation then requested a criminal referral.
Federal procurement is vast and growing: the Confederation purchases goods and services worth around 8 billion francs a year, with IT among the fastest-expanding categories. Under the revised procurement law in force since 2021, contracts above 250,000 francs for services must in principle be openly tendered, though exceptions for urgency and single-source necessity carve out significant space. Audit officials note that the value thresholds have not been adjusted since the revision, and that a growing share of large projects is deliberately structured in lots that sit just beneath them.
Reaction from the business community has been pointedly split. Large suppliers that lost tenders to the contracts in question have quietly welcomed the inquiry; several are said to have provided documentation to investigators. The federation of small technology firms, by contrast, warned against a chilling effect, arguing that rapid pandemic-era procurement genuinely required exceptions and that criminalising administrative sloppiness would deter firms from bidding at all.
Legal scholars note the case will test provisions that have rarely been litigated. A professor of public law at the University of Bern said: “We have prosecuted procurement through the bribery lens for fifty years; if tailored specifications alone can sustain a conviction, the compliance calculus for every contracting office in the country changes overnight.”
Defence practitioners counter that the theory is fragile. Distinguishing a specification tailored to exclude competitors from one tailored to genuine technical need is, they argue, precisely the kind of judgement call criminal law should not second-guess. The Swiss Bar Association's administrative law section expects any prosecution to founder on intent unless investigators find written evidence of favouritism.
Politically, the inquiry has already claimed ground. The head of one of the two offices has been placed on administrative leave by the supervising department, and the finance committees of both chambers have announced parallel administrative reviews covering all single-source awards above one million francs since 2021. The Federal Council has ordered an interim freeze on new awards by the affected units pending the reviews.
Prosecutors say the investigative phase will run well into next year, given the volume of procurement files and the need for forensic review of evaluation records. Any indictment would be heard by the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, which would then confront the untested provisions head on. The court has handled only a handful of procurement-related cases in its two decades of existence, none on this theory.
Whatever the criminal outcome, reform pressure is building. A parliamentary motion filed this week would require publication of evaluation criteria changes within ten working days, a transparency step its sponsor describes as the cheapest possible insurance: tailoring, after all, cannot survive daylight.