Public service Fedpol continues proceedings on Postbus subsidy fraud
The Federal Office of Police (Fedpol) has continued the proceedings in the Postbus scandal and lodged an appeal against the decision of the Bern Commercial Court. The court had previously dismissed Fedpol's charges due to further procedural errors.
16.04.2025, 09:01
SDA
In the last dismissal, the Economic Court had deemed the appointment and assignment of two experts previously employed by the Federal Tax Administration as heads of procedure to be inadmissible. Fedpol does not accept this decision from February and has "lodged an appeal against the decision of the Economic Court in due time", Fedpol informed the news agency Keystone-SDA on request.
The CH-Media newspapers first reported on this. The proceedings are now pending before the Criminal Chamber of the High Court of the Canton of Bern.
Under the relevant administrative criminal law, the investigating authority is not allowed to seek outside help, it was further stated. Fedpol had already handed over the management of the proceedings to former federal judge Hans Mathys and cantonal judge Pierre Cornu in the first indictment, which led to the first dismissal in 2020.
The Postbus affair became public in 2018. According to the case, the Swiss Post company had incorrectly booked income from subsidized regional passenger transport since 2007 in order to avoid compensation cuts in subsequent years.
Fedpol issued penalty orders against five PostBus managers as well as the head of finance at Swiss Post and a board member of the state-owned company. The five accused managers were sentenced to fines of over CHF 400,000 in some cases.
However, these sentences are not legally binding, as all seven defendants have not accepted the verdict and are demanding a judgment by a regular criminal court, the CH Media newspapers reported. The Bern Commercial Court has now declared all of these penal orders invalid.
