Federal Act
on the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority
(Financial Market Supervision Act, FINMASA)

¹ The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall cre­ate an au­thor­ity for the su­per­vi­sion of the fin­an­cial mar­kets in ac­cord­ance with the fol­low­ing acts (the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts):

a.

Mort­gage Bond Act of 25 June 1930⁴;

b.

Fed­er­al Act on Con­tracts of In­sur­ance of 2 April 1908⁵;

c.

Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Act of 23 June 2006⁶;

d.

Bank­ing Act of 8 Novem­ber 1934⁷;

e.⁸

Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018⁹;

f.

Anti-Money Laun­der­ing Act of 10 Oc­to­ber 1997¹⁰;

g.

In­sur­ance Su­per­vi­sion Act of 17 Decem­ber 2004¹¹;

h.¹²

Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 2015¹³;

i.¹⁴

Fin­an­cial Ser­vices Act of 15 June 2018¹⁵.

² This Act es­tab­lishes the or­gan­isa­tion and the su­per­vis­ory in­stru­ments of this au­thor­ity.

¹This Act ap­plies un­less the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts provide oth­er­wise.

² In­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies con­cluded with­in the con­text of in­ter­na­tion­al with­hold­ing tax and their as­so­ci­ated in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments, spe­cific­ally in re­la­tion to transna­tion­al audits and mar­ket ac­cess, take pre­ced­ence over this Act and fin­an­cial mar­ket le­gis­la­tion.¹⁶

The fol­low­ing are sub­ject to fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vi­sion:

a.

per­sons and en­tit­ies that un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts re­quire to be li­censed re­cog­nised, or re­gistered by the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Su­per­vis­ory Au­thor­ity; and

b.¹⁷

col­lect­ive cap­it­al in­vest­ments un­der the Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Act of 23 June 2006¹⁸ that have been or must be li­censed or ap­proved;

c.¹⁹

...

In ac­cord­ance with the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts, fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vi­sion has the ob­ject­ives of pro­tect­ing cred­it­ors, in­vestors, and in­sured per­sons as well as en­sur­ing the prop­er func­tion­ing of the fin­an­cial mar­ket. It thus con­trib­utes to sus­tain­ing the repu­ta­tion, com­pet­it­ive­ness and sus­tain­ab­il­ity of Switzer­land’s fin­an­cial centre.

¹ The au­thor­ity that su­per­vises the fin­an­cial mar­ket is a pub­lic law in­sti­tu­tion with its own leg­al per­son­al­ity and of­fi­cial seat in Bern.

² Its name is the «Swiss Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Su­per­vis­ory Au­thor­ity (FINMA)».

³ It or­gan­ises it­self ac­cord­ing to the prin­ciples of good cor­por­ate gov­ernance and eco­nom­ic man­age­ment. It keeps its own ac­counts.

¹ FINMA car­ries out its su­per­vi­sion ac­cord­ing to the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts and this Act.

² It ful­fils the in­ter­na­tion­al tasks that are re­lated to its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity.

¹ FINMA ex­er­cises its reg­u­lat­ory powers by is­su­ing:

a.

or­din­ances, where so provided in the fin­an­cial mar­ket le­gis­la­tion; and

b.

cir­cu­lars on the ap­plic­a­tion of the fin­an­cial mar­ket le­gis­la­tion.

² It is­sues or­din­ances and cir­cu­lars only to the ex­tent re­quired for the pur­poses of su­per­vi­sion, lim­it­ing it­self as far as pos­sible to the defin­i­tion of prin­ciples. In do­ing so, it takes ac­count of over­rid­ing fed­er­al law and in par­tic­u­lar of:²⁴

a.

the costs that the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies in­cur due to reg­u­la­tion;

b.

the ef­fect that reg­u­la­tion has on com­pet­i­tion, in­nov­at­ive abil­ity and the in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­it­ive­ness of Switzer­land’s fin­an­cial centre;

c.²⁵

the dif­fer­ent sizes, com­plex­it­ies, struc­tures, busi­ness activ­it­ies and risks of the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies; and

d.

the in­ter­na­tion­al min­im­um stand­ards.

³ It sup­ports self-reg­u­la­tion and may re­cog­nise and im­ple­ment the same as a min­im­um stand­ard with­in terms of its su­per­vis­ory powers.

⁴ It provides for a trans­par­ent reg­u­lat­ory pro­cess and the ap­pro­pri­ate par­ti­cip­a­tion of the parties con­cerned.

⁵ It is­sues guidelines on the im­ple­ment­a­tion of these prin­ciples. In do­ing so, it acts in agree­ment with the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Fin­ance (FDF)²⁶.

The man­age­ment bod­ies of FINMA are:

a.

the Board of Dir­ect­ors;

b.

the Man­age­ment Board;

c.

the Aud­it­or.

¹ The Board of Dir­ect­ors is the stra­tegic man­age­ment body of FINMA. It has the fol­low­ing tasks:

a.

It de­term­ines the stra­tegic ob­ject­ives of FINMA and sub­mits them to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for ap­prov­al.

b.

It de­cides on mat­ters of sub­stan­tial im­port­ance.

c.

It is­sues the or­din­ances del­eg­ated to FINMA and de­cides on the cir­cu­lars.

d.

It su­per­vises the Man­age­ment Board.

e.

It es­tab­lishes an in­tern­al audit unit and provides for in­tern­al con­trols.

f.

It draws up the an­nu­al re­port and sub­mits it to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for ap­prov­al pri­or to pub­lic­a­tion.

g.

It ap­points the Chief Ex­ec­ut­ive Of­ficer, sub­ject to ap­prov­al by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

h.

It ap­points the mem­bers of the Man­age­ment Board.

i.

It is­sues the or­gan­isa­tion­al reg­u­la­tions and the guidelines on in­form­a­tion activ­it­ies.

j.

It ap­proves the budget.

² It com­prises sev­en to nine ex­pert mem­bers, who are in­de­pend­ent of the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies. The Board of Dir­ect­ors is ap­poin­ted for a term of of­fice of four years; each mem­ber may be re­appoin­ted twice.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil ap­points the Board of Dir­ect­ors. In do­ing so, it must en­sure the ap­pro­pri­ate rep­res­ent­a­tion of both genders. It ap­points the Chair and the Vice-Chair. It de­term­ines the level of re­mu­ner­a­tion. Art­icle 6a of the Fed­er­al Per­son­nel Act of 24 March 2000²⁷ ap­plies by ana­logy.

⁴ The Chair may not carry out any oth­er eco­nom­ic activ­ity nor hold any fed­er­al or can­ton­al of­fice un­less this is in the in­terest of the ful­fil­ment of the tasks of FINMA.

⁵ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil re­moves mem­bers of the Board of Dir­ect­ors and ap­proves the de­cision of the Board of Dir­ect­ors to ter­min­ate the em­ploy­ment of the Chief Ex­ec­ut­ive Of­ficer if the re­quire­ments for hold­ing of­fice are no longer ful­filled.

¹ The Man­age­ment Board is the op­er­a­tion­al man­age­ment body. It is headed by a Chief Ex­ec­ut­ive Of­ficer.

² It has the fol­low­ing tasks in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

It is­sues rul­ings in ac­cord­ance with the or­gan­isa­tion­al reg­u­la­tions.

b.

It pre­pares the files and ma­ter­i­als on which the Board of Dir­ect­ors bases its de­cisions and re­ports to it reg­u­larly, and in the case of spe­cial events im­me­di­ately.

c.

It car­ries out all the tasks that are not as­signed to an­oth­er man­age­ment body.

³ The or­gan­isa­tion­al reg­u­la­tions reg­u­late the de­tails.

¹ FINMA is di­vided in­to su­per­vi­sion areas. The or­gan­isa­tion­al reg­u­la­tions reg­u­late the de­tails.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil and the Board of Dir­ect­ors en­sure the ap­pro­pri­ate rep­res­ent­a­tion of the vari­ous su­per­vi­sion areas on the Board of Dir­ect­ors and the Man­age­ment Board.

The Fed­er­al Audit Of­fice is the ex­tern­al aud­it­or and provides the Board of Dir­ect­ors and the Fed­er­al Coun­cil with a re­port on the res­ult of its audit.

¹ The em­ploy­ment of FINMA staff is gov­erned by pub­lic law.

² Art­icle 6a of the Fed­er­al Per­son­nel Act of 24 March 2000²⁹ ap­plies by ana­logy.

³ The oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme for the staff is gov­erned by the le­gis­la­tion on the Fed­er­al Pen­sion Fund.

⁴ The Board of Dir­ect­ors reg­u­lates in an or­din­ance:

a.

the em­ploy­ment of per­son­nel and in par­tic­u­lar salar­ies, ad­di­tion­al be­ne­fits, work­ing hours, duty of loy­alty and ter­min­a­tion of em­ploy­ment;

b.

the com­pos­i­tion, elec­tion and or­gan­isa­tion of the Joint Com­mit­tee for the FINMA Pen­sion Fund.

⁵ The Board of Dir­ect­ors shall sub­mit the or­din­ance to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil for ap­prov­al.

Art. 13a³⁰Data processing

¹ FINMA shall pro­cess, in hard copy or in one or more in­form­a­tion sys­tems, the data on its em­ploy­ees and on job ap­plic­ants ne­ces­sary for per­form­ing the tasks in ac­cord­ance with this Act. It may del­eg­ate the pro­cessing to a pro­cessor. The data pro­cessed re­late in par­tic­u­lar to:³¹

a.³²

the ap­plic­a­tion pro­cess;

a^bis.³³

cre­at­ing, ex­ecut­ing and ter­min­at­ing an em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship;

b.

per­son­nel and wage man­age­ment;

c.

per­son­nel de­vel­op­ment;

d.

per­form­ance ap­prais­al;

e.

re­in­teg­ra­tion meas­ures in the event of ill­ness and ac­ci­dent.

² It may pro­cess the fol­low­ing data per­tain­ing to its em­ploy­ees ne­ces­sary for per­form­ing the tasks set out in para­graph 1, in­clud­ing sens­it­ive per­son­al data:³⁴

a.

per­son­al de­tails;

b.

state of health de­tails with re­gard to work­ing abil­ity;

c.

per­form­ance and po­ten­tial in­form­a­tion, as well as data on per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment;

d.

data re­quired with­in the frame­work of par­ti­cip­a­tion in the im­ple­ment­a­tion of so­cial se­cur­ity law;

e.

case files and au­thor­it­ies' de­cisions as­so­ci­ated with work.

³ It shall is­sue im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions with re­gard to:

a.

the ar­chi­tec­ture, or­gan­isa­tion and op­er­a­tion of the in­form­a­tion sys­tem(s);

b.

the pro­cessing of data, par­tic­u­larly gath­er­ing, stor­age, archiv­ing and de­struc­tion;

c.

data pro­cessing au­thor­isa­tions;

d.

the data cat­egor­ies un­der para­graph 2;

e.

data pro­tec­tion and se­cur­ity.

¹ The staff and the man­age­ment bod­ies must ob­serve secrecy on of­fi­cial mat­ters.

² The duty of secrecy con­tin­ues to ap­ply after ter­min­a­tion of em­ploy­ment or mem­ber­ship of a man­age­ment body of FINMA.

³ The staff and the in­di­vidu­al mem­bers of the man­age­ment bod­ies of FINMA may not without au­thor­isa­tion from FINMA dis­close in evid­en­tiary hear­ings and in court pro­ceed­ings as parties, wit­nesses or ex­pert wit­nesses mat­ters that have come to their know­ledge in the course of their du­ties and that re­late to their of­fi­cial tasks.

⁴ Of­fi­cial secrecy ap­plies to all FINMA agents (audit agents, in­vest­ig­at­ing agents, re­struc­tur­ing agents, li­quid­at­ors, ad­min­is­trat­ors in bank­ruptcy).³⁵

¹ FINMA levies fees for su­per­vis­ory pro­ceed­ings in in­di­vidu­al cases and for ser­vices. In ad­di­tion, it levies an an­nu­al su­per­vi­sion charge on the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies for each su­per­vi­sion area to cov­er the costs in­curred by FINMA that are not covered by the fees.

² The su­per­vi­sion charge in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 is as­sessed ac­cord­ing to the fol­low­ing cri­ter­ia:³⁶

a.³⁷

...

a^bis.³⁸

For su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies un­der Art­icle 1a of the Bank­ing Act of 8 Novem­ber 1934³⁹, Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 let­ter e of the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018⁴⁰and the Mort­gage Bond Act of 25 June 1930⁴¹, on the basis of the bal­ance sheet total and se­cur­it­ies turnover; for su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies un­der Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 let­ters c and d of the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act on the basis of the amount of as­sets man­aged, the gross earn­ings and the size of the un­der­tak­ing; for su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies un­der Art­icle 1b of the Bank­ing Act, on the basis of the bal­ance sheet total and the gross earn­ings.

a^ter.⁴²

For su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies un­der the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 2015⁴³, on the basis of the bal­ance sheet total and se­cur­it­ies turnover, or gross earn­ings if no se­cur­it­ies are trans­acted.

b.

For su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies un­der the Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Act of 23 June 2006⁴⁴, on the basis of the amount of as­sets man­aged, the gross earn­ings and the size of the un­der­tak­ing.

c.⁴⁵

For in­sur­ance in­sti­tu­tions un­der the In­sur­ance Su­per­vi­sion Act of 17 Decem­ber 2004⁴⁶ (IOA), on the basis of their share of the total premi­um in­come for all in­sur­ance in­sti­tu­tions; for in­sur­ance groups and con­glom­er­ates un­der the IOA, on the basis of their share of the total num­ber of leg­al en­tit­ies with their own leg­al per­son­al­ity that be­long to a group or con­glom­er­ate; for in­de­pend­ent in­sur­ance agents un­der Art­icle 41 para­graph 1 IOA, on the basis of their num­ber and the size of the un­der­tak­ing.

d.⁴⁷

For self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tions un­der the Anti-Money Laun­der­ing Act of 10 Oc­to­ber 1997⁴⁸ (AMLA), on the basis of the gross earn­ings and num­ber of mem­bers;

e.⁴⁹

For a su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Title 3, the share ac­coun­ted for by its su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies with re­gard to the total num­ber of su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies of all su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tions is de­cis­ive; the supervision fee also covers the costs that FINMA incurs that are caused bysu­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies and which are not covered by other charges.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide for the ap­por­tion­ment of the su­per­vi­sion fee in­to a fixed ba­sic fee and a vari­able sup­ple­ment­ary fee.

⁴ It reg­u­lates the de­tails, and in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the as­sess­ment prin­ciples;

b.

the su­per­vi­sion areas un­der para­graph 1; and

c.

the ap­por­tion­ment of the costs to be fin­anced by the su­per­vi­sion charge among the su­per­vi­sion areas.

FINMA shall with­in a reas­on­able time form re­serves for the ex­er­cise of its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity in an amount equi­val­ent to one an­nu­al budget.

¹ The Fed­er­al Fin­ance Ad­min­is­tra­tion man­ages the li­quid as­sets of FINMA as part of its cent­ral Treas­ury.

² It grants FINMA loans on mar­ket terms in or­der to guar­an­tee its li­quid­ity.

³ The Fed­er­al Fin­ance Ad­min­is­tra­tion and FINMA de­term­ines the de­tails of their co­oper­a­tion by mu­tu­al agree­ment.

¹ The fin­an­cial state­ments of FINMA dis­close in full its as­sets and li­ab­il­it­ies, earn­ings and costs.

² They fol­low the gen­er­al prin­ciples of ma­ter­i­al­ity, in­tel­li­gib­il­ity, con­sist­ency and gross present­a­tion and com­ply with the gen­er­ally re­cog­nised stand­ards.

³ The ac­count­ing and valu­ation rules de­rived from the ac­count­ing stand­ards must be dis­closed.

¹ The li­ab­il­ity of FINMA, its man­age­ment bod­ies, its staff and FINMA agents is gov­erned by the Gov­ern­ment Li­ab­il­ity Act of 14 March 1958⁵⁰, sub­ject to para­graph 2 be­low.⁵¹

² FINMA and its agents are li­able only if:

a.

they have com­mit­ted a breach of fun­da­ment­al du­ties; and

b.

loss or dam­age is not due to a breach of duty by a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity.

¹ FINMA is ex­empt from any tax­a­tion by the Con­fed­er­a­tion, the can­tons or the com­munes.

² The fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion on:

a.

value ad­ded tax;

b.

with­hold­ing tax;

c.

stamp du­ties,

is reserved.

¹ FINMA car­ries out its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity autonom­ously and in­de­pend­ently.

² At least once each year, it re­views the strategy for its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity and cur­rent is­sues of fin­an­cial centre policy with the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

³ It deals with the Fed­er­al Coun­cil via the FDF.

⁴ The Na­tion­al Coun­cil and the Coun­cil of States are re­spons­ible for its su­per­in­tend­ence.

¹ FINMA in­forms the gen­er­al pub­lic at least once each year about its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity and su­per­vis­ory prac­tices.

² It does not provide in­form­a­tion on in­di­vidu­al pro­ceed­ings, un­less there is a par­tic­u­lar need to do so from a su­per­vis­ory point of view and in par­tic­u­lar if the in­form­a­tion is ne­ces­sary:

a.

for the pro­tec­tion of mar­ket par­ti­cipants or the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies;

b.

to cor­rect false or mis­lead­ing in­form­a­tion; or

c.

to safe­guard the repu­ta­tion of Switzer­land’s fin­an­cial centre.

³ Where FINMA has provided in­form­a­tion on in­di­vidu­al pro­ceed­ings, it must also provide im­me­di­ate no­tice of the ter­min­a­tion of the pro­ceed­ings. This may be dis­pensed with at the re­quest of the party con­cerned.

⁴ FINMA takes ac­count of the per­son­al­ity rights of those con­cerned in all its in­form­a­tion activ­it­ies. Per­son­al data may be pub­lished in elec­tron­ic or prin­ted form.

¹ As part of its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity un­der this Act and the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts, FINMA may pro­cess per­son­al data or have per­son­al data pro­cessed, in­clud­ing sens­it­ive per­son­al data.

² It may do this in par­tic­u­lar for the pur­pose of:

a.

audit­ing su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies;

b.

su­per­vi­sion;

c.

con­duct­ing pro­ceed­ings;

d.

as­sess­ing the guar­an­tee of prop­er busi­ness con­duct;

e.

as­sess­ing the con­duct of a per­son act­ing for a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity or in the fin­an­cial mar­ket; or

f.

na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance and mu­tu­al leg­al as­sist­ance.

³ In the case of data pro­cessing for the pur­pose spe­cified in para­graph 2 let­ter e, it is au­thor­ised to carry out pro­fil­ing, in­clud­ing high-risk pro­fil­ing as defined in the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Septem­ber 2020⁵³.

⁴ It shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

Die FINMA shall main­tain a dir­ect­ory of the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies. This dir­ect­ory is ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic in elec­tron­ic form.

¹ In ac­cord­ance with the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts (Art. 1 para. 1), FINMA car­ries out the audit either it­self or ar­ranges for it to be car­ried out:

a.

by li­censed audit com­pan­ies ap­poin­ted by the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies and der Fed­er­al Audit Over­sight Au­thor­ity un­der Art­icle 9a des Aud­it­or Over­sight Act of 16 Decem­ber 2005⁵⁶; or

b.

audit agents in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24a.

² The audit relates in par­tic­u­lar to the risks that su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies may pass on to cred­it­ors, in­vestors, in­sured per­sons or to the prop­er func­tion of the fin­an­cial mar­kets. Du­plic­a­tion of audit­ing work must be avoided as far as pos­sible.

³ Art­icle 730b para­graph 2 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁵⁷ ap­plies by ana­logy to the pre­ser­va­tion of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity by audit com­pan­ies.

⁴ In re­la­tion to audits un­der para­graph 1 let­ter a, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the main as­pects of the con­tent and con­duct of the audit and the form of the re­port. It may au­thor­ise FINMA to is­sue im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions on tech­nic­al mat­ters.

⁵ The su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies bear the costs of the audit.

¹ FINMA may in­struct an in­de­pend­ent and suit­ably qual­i­fied per­son to con­duct audits of su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies.

² It spe­cifies the du­ties of the audit agent in the ap­point­ment or­der.

³ The su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies bear the agent’s costs.

¹ Where an audit com­pany is ap­poin­ted or if FINMA ap­points an audit agent, the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies must provide them with all in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments that are re­quired to carry out their tasks.

² The su­per­vised per­son or en­tity must no­ti­fy FINMA of its choice of audit com­pany.

¹ The audit com­pany provides FINMA with a re­port on its audits. The audit com­pany provides the su­preme man­age­ment body of the audited su­per­vised per­son or en­tity with a copy of the re­port.⁶¹

² If it iden­ti­fies vi­ol­a­tions of su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions or oth­er ir­reg­u­lar­it­ies, it shall give the audited su­per­vised per­son or en­tity an ap­pro­pri­ate peri­od to re­store com­pli­ance with the law. If the peri­od is not com­plied with, it in­forms FINMA.

³ In the case of ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tions of su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions or ser­i­ous ir­reg­u­lar­it­ies, the audit com­pany no­ti­fies FINMA im­me­di­ately.

¹ ...⁶²

² FINMA and the Fed­er­al Audit Over­sight Au­thor­ity provide each oth­er with all the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments that each need to en­force the rel­ev­ant le­gis­la­tion.⁶³

¹ Two dif­fer­ent audit com­pan­ies must be in­struc­ted for the audit un­der the li­cens­ing pro­ced­ure and the oth­er audits.

² In jus­ti­fied cases, FINMA may re­quire the su­per­vised per­son or en­tity to change audit com­pany.

³ FINMA shall no­ti­fy the Fed­er­al Audit Over­sight Au­thor­ity be­fore or­der­ing a change un­der para­graph 2.

¹ The su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies, their audit com­pan­ies and aud­it­ors as well as per­sons or com­pan­ies that are qual­i­fied in­vestors or that have a sub­stan­tial par­ti­cip­a­tion in the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies must provide FINMA with all in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments that it re­quires to carry out its tasks.

² The su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies and the audit com­pan­ies that con­duct audits of them must also im­me­di­ately re­port to FINMA any in­cid­ent that is of sub­stan­tial im­port­ance to the su­per­vi­sion.⁶⁵

Where there are in­dic­a­tions of vi­ol­a­tions of su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions and if FINMA opens pro­ceed­ings, it no­ti­fies the parties of this.

¹ Where a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity vi­ol­ates the pro­vi­sions of this Act or of a fin­an­cial mar­ket act or if there are any oth­er ir­reg­u­lar­it­ies, FINMA shall en­sure the res­tor­a­tion of com­pli­ance with the law.

² Where the rights of cli­ents ap­pear to be jeop­ard­ised, FINMA may re­quire the su­per­vised per­sons or en­tit­ies to provide col­lat­er­al.⁶⁶

¹ Where the pro­ceed­ings re­veal that the su­per­vised per­son or en­tity has ser­i­ously vi­ol­ated su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions, but there is no longer a need to or­der meas­ures to re­store com­pli­ance with the law, FINMA may is­sue a de­clar­at­ory rul­ing.

² If an en­force­able rul­ing from FINMA is not ob­served with­in the set dead­line after a pri­or warn­ing, FINMA may per­form the re­quired act it­self or have it per­formed at the ex­pense of the de­fault­ing party.⁶⁸

¹ If FINMA de­tects a ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tion of su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions, it may pro­hib­it the per­son re­spons­ible from act­ing in a man­age­ment ca­pa­city at any per­son or en­tity sub­ject to its su­per­vi­sion.

² The pro­hib­i­tion from prac­tising a pro­fes­sion may be im­posed for a peri­od of up to five years.

Art. 33a⁶⁹Prohibition from performing an activity

¹ Where the fol­low­ing per­sons ser­i­ously vi­ol­ate the pro­vi­sions of the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts, the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions or in-house dir­ect­ives, FINMA may pro­hib­it such per­sons from trad­ing in fin­an­cial in­stru­ments or act­ing as a cli­ent ad­viser for a fixed peri­od, or per­man­ently in the case of re­peated of­fences:

a.

em­ploy­ees of a su­per­vised en­tity re­spons­ible for trad­ing in fin­an­cial in­stru­ments;

b.

em­ploy­ees of a su­per­vised en­tity act­ing as cli­ent ad­visers.

² If the pro­hib­ited activ­ity also cov­ers an activ­ity in an area un­der the su­per­vi­sion of an­oth­er su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity, this au­thor­ity is to be con­sul­ted and in­formed of the de­cision.

¹ Where there is a ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tion of su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions, FINMA may pub­lish in elec­tron­ic or prin­ted form its fi­nal rul­ing once it takes full leg­al ef­fect, and dis­close the rel­ev­ant per­son­al data.

² No­tice of pub­lic­a­tion must be con­tained in the rul­ing it­self.

¹ FINMA may con­fis­cate any profit that a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity or a re­spons­ible per­son in a man­age­ment po­s­i­tion has made through a ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tion of the su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions.

² The fore­go­ing pro­vi­sion ap­plies by ana­logy if a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity or a re­spons­ible per­son in a man­age­ment po­s­i­tion has pre­ven­ted a loss through a ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tion of su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions.

³ Where the ex­tent of the as­sets to be con­fis­cated can­not be as­cer­tained or re­quires a dis­pro­por­tion­ate ef­fort to be as­cer­tained, FINMA may make an es­tim­ate.

⁴ The right to con­fis­cate pre­scribes after sev­en years.

⁵ Crim­in­al law con­fis­ca­tion un­der Art­icles 70–72 of the Crim­in­al Code⁷⁰ takes pre­ced­ence over con­fis­ca­tion un­der this pro­vi­sion.

⁶ The con­fis­cated as­sets go to the Con­fed­er­a­tion un­less they are paid to the parties suf­fer­ing loss.

¹ FINMA may ap­point an in­de­pend­ent and suit­ably-qual­i­fied per­son to in­vest­ig­ate cir­cum­stances rel­ev­ant for su­per­vis­ory pur­poses at a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity or to im­ple­ment su­per­vis­ory meas­ures that it has ordered (an in­vest­ig­at­ing agent).

² It spe­cifies the du­ties of the in­vest­ig­at­ing agent in the ap­point­ment or­der. It de­term­ines the ex­tent to which the in­vest­ig­at­ing agent may act in the place of the man­age­ment bod­ies of the su­per­vised per­son or en­tity.

³ The su­per­vised per­son or en­tity must al­low the in­vest­ig­at­ing agent ac­cess to its premises and provide him or her with all the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments that the in­vest­ig­at­ing agent re­quires to ful­fil his or her du­ties.

⁴ The costs of the in­vest­ig­at­ing agent are borne by the su­per­vised per­son or en­tity. It must if so in­struc­ted by FINMA make an ad­vance pay­ment to cov­er costs.

¹ FINMA shall re­voke the li­cence of a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity, with­draw its re­cog­ni­tion or can­cel its re­gis­tra­tion if it no longer ful­fils the re­quire­ments for its activ­ity or ser­i­ously vi­ol­ates the su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions.⁷²

² On re­voc­a­tion, with­draw­al or can­cel­la­tion, the su­per­vised per­son or en­tity loses its right to carry out its activ­ity. The oth­er con­sequences of re­voc­a­tion, with­draw­al or can­cel­la­tion are gov­erned by the ap­plic­able fin­an­cial mar­ket acts.

³ These con­sequences ap­ply by ana­logy if a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity car­ries out its activ­ity without a li­cence, re­cog­ni­tion, or re­gis­tra­tion.

¹ FINMA and the com­pet­ent pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­ity shall ex­change the in­form­a­tion that they re­quire in the con­text of their col­lab­or­a­tion and in or­der to ful­fil their tasks. They shall use the in­form­a­tion re­ceived ex­clus­ively to ful­fil their re­spect­ive tasks.⁷³

² They co­ordin­ate their in­vest­ig­a­tions, as far as is prac­tic­able and re­quired.

³ Where FINMA ob­tains know­ledge of com­mon law felon­ies and mis­de­mean­ours or of of­fences against this Act or the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts, it shall no­ti­fy the com­pet­ent pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies.

¹ FINMA is au­thor­ised to provide oth­er do­mest­ic su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies and the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank with non-pub­lic in­form­a­tion that they need to ful­fil their tasks.

^1bis FINMA and the supervisory authority under the Health Insurance Supervision Act of 26 September 2014⁷⁵shall coordinate their supervisory activities. They shall inform each other as soon as they become aware of events that are of significance to the other supervisory authority.⁷⁶

² FINMA may also ex­change non-pub­lic in­form­a­tion on cer­tain fin­an­cial mar­ket par­ti­cipants with the FDF where this helps main­tain the sta­bil­ity of the fin­an­cial sys­tem.⁷⁷

FINMA may re­fuse to dis­close in­form­a­tion that is not pub­licly ac­cess­ible or to hand over files to pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies and oth­er do­mest­ic au­thor­it­ies where:

a.

the in­form­a­tion and the files solely serve the pur­pose of form­ing in­tern­al opin­ions;

b.

their dis­clos­ure or han­dover would pre­ju­dice on­go­ing pro­ceed­ings or the ful­fil­ment of its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity;

c.

it is not com­pat­ible with the aims of fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vi­sion or with its pur­pose.

At the re­quest of any of the au­thor­it­ies con­cerned, the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court rules on dis­putes re­lat­ing to the co­oper­a­tion between FINMA on the one hand and pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies or oth­er do­mest­ic au­thor­it­ies on the oth­er.

Art. 41a⁷⁸Communication of judgments

¹ The can­ton­al civil courts and the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court shall provide FINMA free of charge with a full copy of their judg­ment in re­la­tion to dis­putes between a su­per­vised per­son or en­tity and cred­it­ors, in­vestors or in­sured parties.

² FINMA shall for­ward to the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion the judg­ments con­cern­ing the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion's su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies.

¹ In or­der to im­ple­ment the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts, FINMA may ask for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies to provide in­form­a­tion.

² It may trans­mit non-pub­lic in­form­a­tion to for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies only if:

a.

this in­form­a­tion is used ex­clus­ively to im­ple­ment fin­an­cial mar­ket law, or is for­war­ded to oth­er au­thor­it­ies, courts or bod­ies for this pur­pose;

b.

the re­quest­ing au­thor­it­ies are bound by of­fi­cial or pro­fes­sion­al secrecy, not­with­stand­ing pro­vi­sions on the pub­lic nature of pro­ceed­ings and the no­ti­fic­a­tion of the gen­er­al pub­lic about such pro­ceed­ings.

³ Para­graphs 1 and 2 ap­ply by ana­logy to the ex­change of in­form­a­tion between FINMA and for­eign au­thor­it­ies, courts and bod­ies in­volved in the re­struc­tur­ing and res­ol­u­tion of au­thor­ised parties.

⁴ The ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance shall be car­ried out swiftly. FINMA shall ob­serve the prin­ciple of pro­por­tion­al­ity. The trans­mis­sion of in­form­a­tion con­cern­ing per­sons who are mani­festly un­in­volved in the mat­ter be­ing in­vest­ig­ated is not per­mit­ted.

⁵ FINMA may, in agree­ment with the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Justice, au­thor­ise the for­ward­ing of in­form­a­tion to pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­it­ies for pur­poses oth­er than those men­tioned in para­graph 2 let­ter a, provided that mu­tu­al leg­al as­sist­ance in crim­in­al mat­ters is not ex­cluded.

¹ If FINMA does not yet have the in­form­a­tion to be trans­mit­ted, it may re­quest it from the in­form­a­tion hold­ers. The per­sons called on to provide in­form­a­tion may re­fuse to an­swer ques­tions by vir­tue of Art­icle 16 of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968⁸².

² Sub­ject to para­graphs 3 to 6, the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure Act ap­plies to in­form­a­tion re­gard­ing in­di­vidu­al cli­ents which is to be trans­mit­ted by FINMA.

³ FINMA may re­fuse the right of ac­cess to the cor­res­pond­ence with for­eign au­thor­it­ies. Art­icle 28 of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure Act re­mains re­served.

⁴ FINMA may ex­cep­tion­ally re­frain from in­form­ing the cli­ents con­cerned be­fore trans­mit­ting the in­form­a­tion if the pur­pose of the ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance and the ef­fect­ive ful­fil­ment of the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity's tasks would be com­prom­ised by pri­or no­ti­fic­a­tion. In such cases, the cli­ents con­cerned shall be in­formed af­ter­wards.

⁵ In the cases de­tailed in para­graph 4, FINMA shall in­form the in­form­a­tion hold­ers and the au­thor­it­ies no­ti­fied of the re­quest about the post­pone­ment of no­ti­fic­a­tion. These may not provide in­form­a­tion about the re­quest un­til the cli­ents in ques­tion have been in­formed.

⁶ The de­cision of FINMA on the trans­mis­sion of in­form­a­tion to the for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity may be chal­lenged by the cli­ent be­fore the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court with­in ten days. Art­icle 22a of the Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure Act does not ap­ply. In the cases de­tailed in para­graph 4, the re­quest may only cite a de­clar­a­tion of un­law­ful­ness.

¹ In or­der to ful­fil its tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6, FINMA may par­ti­cip­ate in mul­ti­lat­er­al ini­ti­at­ives of in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions and bod­ies which give rise to the ex­change of in­form­a­tion.

² In the case of mul­ti­lat­er­al ini­ti­at­ives which have far-reach­ing im­plic­a­tions for the Swiss fin­an­cial centre, par­ti­cip­a­tion in the ex­change of in­form­a­tion shall take place in agree­ment with the FDF.

³ When par­ti­cip­at­ing, FINMA may trans­mit non-pub­lic in­form­a­tion to in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions and bod­ies only if:

a.

this in­form­a­tion is used ex­clus­ively to ful­fil tasks as­so­ci­ated with the de­vel­op­ment of and com­pli­ance with reg­u­lat­ory stand­ards or to ana­lyse sys­tem­ic risks;

b.

con­fid­en­ti­al­ity is en­sured.

⁴ FINMA shall agree the pre­cise in­ten­ded use and any for­ward­ing of the in­form­a­tion trans­mit­ted with the in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions and bod­ies. Para­graph 3 re­mains re­served.

¹ Su­per­vised parties may trans­mit non-pub­lic in­form­a­tion to the for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for them and to oth­er for­eign en­tit­ies re­spons­ible for su­per­vi­sion provided:

a.

the con­di­tions set out in Art­icle 42 para­graph 2 are ful­filled;

b.

the rights of cli­ents and third parties are pre­served.

² Fur­ther­more, they may trans­mit non-pub­lic in­form­a­tion re­lated to the trans­ac­tions of cli­ents and su­per­vised parties to for­eign au­thor­it­ies and to en­tit­ies act­ing on the au­thor­it­ies' be­half if the rights of cli­ents and third parties are pre­served.

³ The trans­mis­sion of in­form­a­tion that is of sub­stan­tial im­port­ance in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 29 para­graph 2 must be re­por­ted to FINMA be­fore­hand.

⁴ FINMA may re­serve ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance chan­nels.

⁵ It may make the trans­mis­sion, pub­lic­a­tion or for­ward­ing of files in the con­text of su­per­vi­sion sub­ject to its ap­prov­al if this is in the in­terest of its task ful­fil­ment and is not in con­flict with over­rid­ing private or pub­lic in­terests.

¹ In or­der to im­ple­ment the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts, FINMA may it­self carry out dir­ect audits of su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies abroad or have such audits car­ried out by audit agents.⁸⁵

² It may per­mit for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies to carry out dir­ect audits of su­per­vised parties provided:

a.

these au­thor­it­ies are re­spons­ible for the su­per­vi­sion of the audited su­per­vised party as part of home coun­try su­per­vi­sion or are re­spons­ible for su­per­vising the activ­ity of the audited su­per­vised party in their ter­rit­ory; and

b.

the con­di­tions for ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance set out in Art­icle 42 para­graph 2 are ful­filled.⁸⁶

³ In­form­a­tion may be col­lec­ted through cross-bor­der dir­ect audits only if it is re­quired for the su­per­vis­ory activ­ity of the for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity. This in­cludes in par­tic­u­lar in­form­a­tion on wheth­er an in­sti­tu­tion throughout its group struc­ture:

a.

is ap­pro­pri­ately or­gan­ised;

b.

re­cords, lim­its and mon­it­ors in an ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner the risks in­her­ent in its busi­ness op­er­a­tions;

c.

is man­aged by per­sons who guar­an­tee prop­er busi­ness con­duct;

d.

ful­fils the own funds and risk di­ver­si­fic­a­tion reg­u­la­tions on a con­sol­id­ated basis; and

e.

prop­erly com­plies with its re­port­ing du­ties vis-à-vis the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies.⁸⁷

^3bis If dur­ing dir­ect audits in Switzer­land for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies wish to con­sult in­form­a­tion linked dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly to the as­set man­age­ment, se­cur­it­ies trad­ing or de­pos­it busi­ness for in­di­vidu­al cli­ents, FINMA shall col­lect this in­form­a­tion it­self and trans­mit it to the re­quest­ing au­thor­it­ies. The same ap­plies to in­form­a­tion which dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly relates to in­di­vidu­al in­vestors in col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes. Art­icle 42a ap­plies.⁸⁸

^3ter FINMA may, for the pur­poses de­tailed in para­graph 3, al­low the for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity which is re­spons­ible for the con­sol­id­ated su­per­vi­sion of the audited su­per­vised party to con­sult a lim­ited num­ber of in­di­vidu­al cli­ent dossiers. The dossiers must be se­lec­ted ran­domly on the basis of pre­defined cri­ter­ia.⁸⁹

⁴ FINMA may ac­com­pany the for­eign au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible for fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vi­sion on their dir­ect audits in Switzer­land or ar­range for them to be ac­com­pan­ied by an audit com­pany or an audit agent. The su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies con­cerned may re­quest such ac­com­pani­ment.⁹⁰

⁵ Es­tab­lish­ments or­gan­ised un­der Swiss law must provide the for­eign fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies and FINMA with the in­form­a­tion re­quired to carry out the dir­ect audits or the in­form­a­tion that FINMA re­quires to provide the ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance, and must per­mit the in­spec­tion of their books.

⁶ Es­tab­lish­ments are defined as:

a.

sub­si­di­ar­ies, branch of­fices and rep­res­ent­at­ive of­fices of su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies or of for­eign in­sti­tu­tions; and

b.

oth­er com­pan­ies, provided their activ­ity is in­cluded by a fin­an­cial mar­ket su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity in the con­sol­id­ated su­per­vi­sion.

¹ The on­go­ing su­per­vi­sion of port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees un­der Art­icle 17 of the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018⁹³ is per­formed by one or more su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tions with their re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land.⁹⁴

² The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion shall re­quire au­thor­isa­tion from FINMA be­fore com­men­cing its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity and shall be su­per­vised by FINMA.

³ The supervisory organisation may also supervise financial intermediaries under Article 2 paragraph 3 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 10 October 1997⁹⁵(AMLA) with regard to compliance with their duties under AMLA, provided they are recognised as a self-regulatory organisation in accordance with Article 24 AMLA.

⁴ If the supervisory organisation is also active in accordance with paragraph 3 as a self-regulatory organisation, it shall ensure that this is evident to others at all times.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion shall con­tinu­ously mon­it­or wheth­er port­fo­lio man­agers and trust­ees in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 17 of the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018⁹⁶ are in com­pli­ance with the fin­an­cial mar­ket le­gis­la­tion to which they are sub­ject.⁹⁷

² Where the supervisory organisation detectsvi­ol­a­tions of su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions or oth­er ir­reg­u­lar­it­ies,it shall give the audited su­per­vised per­son or en­tity an ap­pro­pri­ate peri­od to re­store com­pli­ance with the law. If the peri­od is not com­plied with, it in­forms FINMA.

³ The Federal Council shall determine the main aspects and content of the continuous supervision. In doing so, it shall take account of the differing size and business risks of the supervised person or entity. It may authorise FINMA to issue implementing provisions on technical matters.

¹ FINMA shall grant the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion au­thor­isa­tion if the pro­vi­sions of this chapter are com­plied with.

² It shall ap­prove the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion's art­icles of as­so­ci­ation and or­gan­isa­tion­al reg­u­la­tions, as well as the ap­point­ment of the per­sons en­trus­ted with its ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment.

³ Pri­or au­thor­isa­tion or ap­prov­al from FINMA must be ob­tained in the case of changes to cir­cum­stances re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion and doc­u­ments re­quir­ing ap­prov­al.

⁴ If two or more su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tions are es­tab­lished, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue rules for the co­ordin­a­tion of their activ­it­ies and the sub­jec­tion of the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies to a giv­en su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion must ef­fect­ively be man­aged from Switzer­land.

² It must have ap­pro­pri­ate man­age­ment rules and be or­gan­ised in such a man­ner that it can ful­fil its du­ties in ac­cord­ance with this Act.

³ It must have the fin­an­cial and per­son­nel re­sources ne­ces­sary to per­form its tasks.

⁴ It must have a man­age­ment board as the op­er­a­tion­al body.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion and the per­sons re­spons­ible for its man­age­ment must provide a guar­an­tee of ir­re­proach­able busi­ness con­duct.

² Moreover, the per­sons re­spons­ible for ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment must en­joy a good repu­ta­tion and have the spe­cial­ist qual­i­fic­a­tions re­quired for their func­tions.

³ A ma­jor­ity of the per­sons charged with ad­min­is­tra­tion must be in­de­pend­ent of the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies.

⁴ The mem­bers of the man­age­ment board must be in­de­pend­ent of the per­sons and en­tit­ies su­per­vised by the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion.

⁵ The per­sons en­trus­ted with su­per­vi­sion must be in­de­pend­ent of the per­sons and en­tit­ies they su­per­vise. The tasks of a su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion un­der this Act and those of a self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tion un­der AMLA⁹⁸ may be man­aged by the same per­sons and car­ried out by the same staff.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion shall fin­ance its su­per­vis­ory in in­di­vidu­al cases and when provid­ing ser­vices from con­tri­bu­tions paid by the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies.

² The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion shall form re­serves with­in a reas­on­able time for the ex­er­cise of its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity in an amount equi­val­ent to one an­nu­al budget.

³ The Confederation may grant the supervisory organisation a loan on market terms in order to guarantee its liquidity until the reserves in accordance with paragraph 2 have been formed in full.

Art­icle 19 ap­plies by ana­logy to the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion shall peri­od­ic­ally in­form FINMA about its su­per­vis­ory activ­ity.

² FINMA shall veri­fy wheth­er the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion meets the re­quire­ments un­der Chapter 2 of this title and wheth­er it is per­form­ing its su­per­vis­ory tasks.

³ The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion must fur­nish FINMA with all the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments that FINMA re­quires to su­per­vise the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion.

¹ FINMA shall take the ne­ces­sary meas­ures if the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion does not meet the re­quire­ments un­der Chapter 2 of this title or does not per­form its su­per­vis­ory tasks.

² FINMA may dis­miss per­sons who no longer ful­fil the guar­an­tee of ir­re­proach­able busi­ness con­duct.

³ If no oth­er meas­ure proves ef­fect­ive, FINMA may li­quid­ate the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion and trans­fer the su­per­vis­ory activ­ity to an­oth­er su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion as a meas­ure of last re­sort.

⁴ If there are indications of irregularities and the supervisory organisation does not take the measures required to restore compliance with the law, FINMA may:

a.

con­duct an audit of the su­per­vised per­son or en­tity;

b.

ap­point an audit agent in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24a; or

c.

make use of su­per­vis­ory in­stru­ments in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 29–37.

Art­icle 23 ap­plies by ana­logy.

¹ The su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion may carry out the audit of its su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies it­self or ar­range for it to be car­ried out by an audit com­pany that:

a.

is li­censed as an aud­it­or by the Fed­er­al Audit Over­sight Au­thor­ity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 6 of the Aud­it­or Over­sight Act of 16 Decem­ber 2005⁹⁹;

b.

is ad­equately or­gan­ised for this audit; and

c.

does not per­form any oth­er activ­ity re­quir­ing au­thor­isa­tion un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts.

² For audits con­duc­ted by an audit com­pany in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1, a lead aud­it­or must be ap­poin­ted who:

a.

is li­censed by the Fed­er­al Audit Over­sight Au­thor­ity as an aud­it­or in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 5 of the Audit Over­sight Act;

b.

pos­sesses the re­quired spe­cial­ist know­ledge and prac­tic­al ex­per­i­ence to con­duct the audit in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.

³ Art­icles 24 para­graphs 2–5 and 24a–28a ap­ply by ana­logy.

⁴ If so ordered by the su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion, the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies must make an ad­vance pay­ment to cov­er costs.

¹ The su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies, their audit com­pan­ies and aud­it­ors as well as per­sons or com­pan­ies that are qual­i­fied in­vestors or that have a sub­stan­tial par­ti­cip­a­tion in the su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies must provide FINMA with all in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments that it re­quires to carry out its tasks.

² The su­per­vised per­sons and en­tit­ies and the audit com­pan­ies that con­duct audits of them must also im­me­di­ately re­port to FINMA any in­cid­ent that is of sub­stan­tial im­port­ance to the su­per­vi­sion.

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully without au­thor­isa­tion, re­cog­ni­tion, a li­cence, re­gis­tra­tion or af­fil­i­ation with a self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 24 para­graph 1 of the AMLA¹⁰² car­ries out an activ­ity that re­quires au­thor­isa­tion, re­cog­ni­tion, a li­cence, re­gis­tra­tion or af­fil­i­ation with a self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tion un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts is li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence of up to three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.¹⁰³

² Where the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he or she is li­able to a fine of up to 250 000 francs.

³ ...¹⁰⁴

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully provides FINMA, an audit com­pany, a supervisory organisation a self-reg­u­lat­ory or­gan­isa­tion, or an agent with false in­form­a­tion is li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence of up to three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.¹⁰⁵

² Where the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he or she is li­able to a fine of up to 250 000 francs.

³ ...¹⁰⁶

¹ Any per­son who as an agent wil­fully and ser­i­ously vi­ol­ates the su­per­vis­ory pro­vi­sions by:¹⁰⁸

a.¹⁰⁹

falsely stat­ing es­sen­tial in­form­a­tion in the re­port or with­hold­ing es­sen­tial in­form­a­tion;

b.

fail­ing to make a man­dat­ory re­port to FINMA; or

c.

fail­ing to make an or­der un­der Art­icle 27 to the audited su­per­vised per­son or en­tity,

is li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence of up to three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.

² Where the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he or she is li­able to a fine of up to 250 000 francs.

³ ...¹¹⁰

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.¹¹¹

fails to have the an­nu­al fin­an­cial state­ments re­quired by the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts audited by a li­censed audit com­pany or to have an audit car­ried out that is re­quired un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts or that has been ordered by FINMA or a su­per­vis­ory or­gan­isa­tion;

b.

fails to ful­fil his or her ob­lig­a­tions vis-à-vis the audit com­pany or the agent,

is li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence of up to three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.

² Where the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, he or she is li­able to a fine of up to 250 000 francs.

³ ...¹¹²

Any per­son who wil­fully fails to com­ply with a leg­ally en­force­able rul­ing is­sued by FINMA con­tain­ing no­tice of the pen­al­ties un­der this Art­icle or with a de­cision of the ap­peal courts is li­able to a fine of up to 100 000 francs.

The as­cer­tain­ment of the crim­in­ally li­able per­sons may be dis­pensed with and in­stead the busi­ness op­er­a­tion may be ordered to pay the fine (Art. 7 of the FA of 22 March 1974¹¹⁴ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law) where:

a.

the as­cer­tain­ment of the per­sons who are crim­in­ally li­able un­der Art­icle 6 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law re­quires in­vest­ig­at­ive meas­ures that are dis­pro­por­tion­ate in com­par­is­on with the pen­alty in­curred; and

b.

a fine of a max­im­um of 50 000 francs is un­der con­sid­er­a­tion for the vi­ol­a­tions of the crim­in­al pro­vi­sions of this Act or the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts.

¹ For vi­ol­a­tions of the crim­in­al pro­vi­sions of this Act or the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts, the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974¹¹⁵ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law ap­plies, un­less this Act or the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts provides oth­er­wise. The au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for pro­sec­u­tion and judge­ment is the FDF.

² Where pro­ceed­ings be­fore the courts are re­ques­ted or if the FDF is of the view that the re­quire­ments for a cus­todi­al sen­tence or a cus­todi­al meas­ure are met, the of­fence is sub­ject to fed­er­al jur­is­dic­tion. In such a case, the FDF shall refer the files to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land for pro­ceed­ings be­fore the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court. The re­fer­ral is deemed to be the bring­ing of charges Art­icles 73–83 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law ap­ply by ana­logy.

³ The rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land and of the FDF are not re­quired to ap­pear in per­son at the tri­al.

¹ In a crim­in­al case, if both the jur­is­dic­tion of the FDF and fed­er­al or can­ton­al jur­is­dic­tion ap­ply, the FDF may or­der that the pro­sec­u­tion be uni­fied un­der the pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­ity already deal­ing with the case, provided there is a close fac­tu­al re­la­tion, the case is not yet pending be­fore the com­pet­ent court and uni­fic­a­tion will not un­reas­on­ably delay the on­go­ing pro­ceed­ings.

² The Ap­peals Cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Crim­in­al Court de­cides on any dis­putes between the FDF and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Switzer­land or the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

The pro­sec­u­tion of of­fences un­der this Act and un­der the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts be­come time barred after sev­en years.

The pro­ced­ure is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968¹¹⁷ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure.

¹ The con­test­ing of FINMA rul­ings is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of fed­er­al justice.

² FINMA is en­titled to ap­peal to the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court.

¹The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions. In do­ing so, it shall ob­serve the prin­ciples of reg­u­la­tion in Art­icle 7 para­graph 2 and base its reg­u­la­tion on the ma­jor­ity of the su­per­vised per­sons or en­tit­ies at the time. The fore­go­ing is sub­ject to more strin­gent re­quire­ments, in par­tic­u­lar with re­gard to risks to the sta­bil­ity of the fin­an­cial sys­tem.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may au­thor­ise FINMA in mat­ters of lim­ited im­port­ance, and in par­tic­u­lar in pre­dom­in­antly tech­nic­al mat­ters, to is­sue im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions to this Act and to the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts.

FINMA is re­spons­ible for the im­ple­ment­a­tion of this Act and of the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts.

The amend­ment of cur­rent le­gis­la­tion is reg­u­lated in the An­nex.

Ap­plic­a­tions for au­thor­isa­tion un­der Art­icle 43cpara­graph 1 must be sub­mit­ted no later than six months after the Amend­ment of 15 June 2018 comes in­to force. FINMA shall is­sue a de­cision on the ap­plic­a­tion with­in six months of re­ceipt.

¹ The em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships of the staff of the Fed­er­al Bank­ing Com­mis­sion, of the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Private In­sur­ance and of the Anti-Money Laun­der­ing Con­trol Au­thor­ity shall be trans­ferred in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 58 para­graph 1 to FINMA and shall be con­tin­ued in ac­cord­ance with this Act.

² There is no right to the con­tinu­ation of any func­tion, field of work or po­s­i­tion with­in the or­gan­isa­tion­al sys­tem; however, staff have a right to their cur­rent salary for a peri­od of one year.

³ Job ap­plic­a­tion pro­ced­ures will be car­ried out only if it proves ne­ces­sary as a res­ult of re­or­gan­isa­tion or where there is more than one can­did­ate.

⁴ FINMA shall en­deav­our to carry out re­struc­tur­ing activ­it­ies in a so­cially ac­cept­able man­ner.

¹ FINMA is the re­spons­ible em­ploy­er for per­sons in re­ceipt of a pen­sion:

a.

who are al­loc­ated to the Fed­er­al Bank­ing Com­mis­sion, the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Private In­sur­ance or the Anti-Money Laun­der­ing Con­trol Au­thor­ity; and

b.

who have be­gun to draw an old age, in­valid­ity or sur­viv­or’s pen­sion from the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sion scheme with the Fed­er­al Pen­sion Fund be­fore the com­mence­ment of this Act.

² Where any in­ca­pa­city to work, the cause of which sub­sequently leads to in­valid­ity, be­gins be­fore the com­mence­ment of this Act and the re­lated pen­sion be­gins to be drawn after its com­mence­ment, FINMA is also the re­spons­ible em­ploy­er.

¹ This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the date on which this Act comes in­to force.

Com­mence­ment Date:¹²⁵

Art­icles 4, 7, 8, 9 para­graph 1 let­ters a–e and g–j as well as para­graphs 2–5, Art­icles 10–14, 17–20, 21 para­graphs 3 and 4, 53–55, 58 para­graph 2 second sen­tence, 59 para­graphs 2–4; An­nex Num­ber 4 (Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court Act), Head­ing be­fore Art­icle 31 and
33 let­ter b: 1 Feb­ru­ary 2008

Oth­er pro­vi­sions: 1 Janu­ary 2009