Swiss court rejects appeal to release funds linked to former Ukraine regime

Account freezes on Ukraine imposed by the Federal Council remain in place Keystone-SDA

Switzerland will continue to block the assets of individuals with political connections to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, after the Federal Supreme Court rejected three appeals.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The Federal Council ordered the measures in 2022 and 2023 based on laws regulating illicitly acquired assets of foreign Politically Exposed Persons.

This means that the assets cannot be withdrawn before a decision is made on their confiscation. This was stated by the Federal Supreme Court in the judgements published on Friday.

+ Why won’t Switzerland use frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine?

The Federal Administrative Court dismissed appeals against the account freezes in 2024. The appellants were also unsuccessful before the Federal Supreme Court because the requirements for blocking were met.

In particular, it can be assumed that the Ukrainian authorities are not in a position to fulfil the requirements for mutual legal assistance proceedings in criminal matters in the cases under review.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]

News