Group wanted to keep contracts secret Amazon loses against journalist in Swiss court

Amazon has failed in its attempt to stop the publication of federal cloud contracts. The Federal Administrative Court allows disclosure - Amazon's contract itself remains under lock and key for the time being.

Amazon has failed with an application before the Federal Administrative Court in St. Gallen. The company wanted to prevent the federal government from disclosing the framework agreements with four other providers in the "Public Clouds Bund" project. The court rejected the application: These contracts may be published.

The background to this is a request for access by "Republik" journalist Adrienne Fichter two years ago. Based on the Public Access Act, she requested access to the contracts that the federal government had concluded with large cloud providers as part of a tender.

At first, things looked good in terms of transparency: the Federal Chancellery intended to make the contracts publicly accessible with redacted passages. However, Amazon Web Services (AWS) opposed this, citing alleged trade secrets. AWS also wanted to prevent the publication of the other contracts - arguing that conclusions could be drawn about its own contract.

The Federal Administrative Court rejected this request in an interim ruling at the beginning of July 2025. The requested redactions were disproportionate and the threat of economic damage was not credibly demonstrated. The disclosure of the other contracts did not violate any legitimate interests of Amazon.

Journalist speaks of "interim victory for Switzerland"

During the proceedings, the journalist made public the absurd means used by Amazon to enforce secrecy: This year, she should have commented on the company's applications - but Amazon had some of its own applications to the court blacked out.

Fichter is all the more pleased following the decision: "Amazon is staging itself as the savior of Europe's digital sovereignty - and is using brazen means in the background to obstruct transparency regarding the framework agreements with the Swiss state. The company wants to prevent Swiss citizens from knowing how their data is processed in the cloud." The Federal Administrative Court has seen through this "maneuver", she says: "The decision is an interim victory for the rule of law and the public in Switzerland."

However, the AWS contract remains secret for the time being: because Amazon has filed an appeal against the disclosure of its own contract, this point has not yet been decided. Access to this document will remain blocked until the ruling in the main proceedings. The interim order is not yet legally binding and can still be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.