CO2 data manipulation: CHF 9 million damage
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland has filed charges with the Federal Criminal Court against a former employee of the Federal Roads Office (Astra) and two board members of a car import company. According to the indictment, the two directors paid the Astra employee to alter the data relevant to the calculation of CO2 sanctions so that their company did not have to pay any sanctions for over three years. As a result, the federal government incurred damages of around 9 million francs.
Switzerland introduced CO2 emission regulations for new passenger cars in 2012 with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions from new passenger cars to an average of 130 g CO2/km by the end of 2015. If the average CO2 emissions of all vehicles of an importer exceed this target, the federal government charges a corresponding CO2 penalty. The Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) and Astra are responsible for recording the imports, invoicing for the CO2 penalty and collecting the penalty.
Based on a criminal complaint filed by Astra, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland opened criminal proceedings against the Astra employee in September 2017 and shortly thereafter extended these proceedings to the two members of the Board of Directors, as it has just announced. After extensive investigations, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland has now charged the former Astra employee with multiple counts of forgery of documents in office (Article 317(1) of the Criminal Code, SCC), multiple counts of taking bribes (Article 322quater SCC), commercial tax fraud (Article 14(4) of the Administrative Criminal Code, ACC) and multiple counts of obtaining a false certification (Article 15(1) ACC). The other two defendants are charged with multiple incitement to falsify documents in office (Art. 317 para. 1 in conjunction with Art. 24 para. 1 of the Criminal Code), multiple bribery (Art. 322ter of the Criminal Code), commercial tax fraud (Art. 14 para. 4 of the Criminal Code) and multiple fraudulent false certification (Art. 15 para. 1 of the Criminal Code).
False recording and manipulation of data
The former Astra employee was employed as a technical clerk in the road traffic department there from May 2012 to September 2017. He is accused of having manipulated the data in Astra's computer systems relevant for the CO2 sanction survey in favor of the aforementioned vehicle import company in the period from June 2014 to September 2017. In return, the two members of the Board of Directors allegedly handed over a cash amount of 2,000 Swiss francs to him on a monthly basis. As a result of this action, the vehicle import company did not have to pay CO2 penalties for the years 2015 to 2017 for the passenger cars it imported. If the data had been recorded truthfully, CO2 penalties of around 9 million francs would have been incurred during this period, according to the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland.
As usual, the BA announces the criminal charges on the occasion of the main hearing before the Federal Criminal Court. Once the indictment has been filed, the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona is responsible for providing further information to the media. The presumption of innocence applies until a final verdict has been reached.
Source: Federal Prosecutor's Office
