Swiss involved in arms sale to Taiwan speaks out

One of the French frigates sold to Taiwan in 1991 Keystone

A Swiss businessman, Edgar Hans Brunner, has spoken out for the first time on the 1991 "Thomson affair" involving the highly lucrative sale of frigates by the French company to Taiwan.

Brunner told swissinfo why his small company, Frontier AG Bern, which at the time marketed Swiss milk in Singapore, was needed by the French armaments giant to secure the contract.

“It was a delicate affair, and Thomson had no wish for it to become public knowledge,” Brunner said.

All that was known so far, was that Brunner’s company served as intermediary in the SFr3.7 billion sale of six vessels to Taipei. This information is based on a contract dated July 19, 1990, in which the French armaments firm promised the Berne-based company a fee in exchange for helping Thomson “obtain a sales contract of frigates to the Republic of China (Taiwan)”.

Both the International Court of Arbitration and, in 1997, the Swiss Federal Court deemed the document authentic.

Besides the fact that Frontier was approached for the job, another bizarre element was the fact that it was Alfred Sirven – then number two at the French oil group, Elf – who contacted Brunner.

There has been speculation that Brunner was acting as a front for the sale of the frigates to Taiwan. But Brunner categorically denies these allegations, saying his task was “that of a true intermediary”.

As proof of the “mediation” he did, Brunner points to the fact that Frontier AG Bern is still pressing Thomson to pay the SFr40 million fee it claims it is owed. Furthermore, the International Court of Arbitration ruled in the company’s favour in July 1997, as did the Federal Court in Lausanne six months later.

Thomson not only never paid the fees, but also filed a complaint that same year against the Swiss company for “attempted fraud”. Frontier AG Bern, for its part, was declared bankrupt in September 1991.

“We had no more business,” explained Brunner.

by Ian Hamel