No new award of the license Roger Schawinski suffers setback in court
In the dispute over the radio license for Südostschweiz, the Federal Administrative Court has rejected the appeal by Radio Alpin Grischa AG. This means that the decision to award the license to Südostschweiz Radio AG remains in place.
03.12.2025, 11:14
SDA
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- Radio Alpin Grischa AG fails with its appeal against the Federal Administrative Court's licensing decision.
- The court sees no grounds for appeal and maintains that Südostschweiz Radio AG will receive the license.
- The decision is final and can no longer be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
The Federal Administrative Court has dismissed the appeal by Radio Alpin Grischa AG. It will not make a new decision on the award of the radio license for south-eastern Switzerland.
On January 11, 2024, the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) awarded the radio license for the coverage area of south-eastern Switzerland/Glarus to Radio Alpin Grischa AG, which was in the process of being founded at the time.
In January 2025, the Federal Administrative Court upheld an appeal against the award of the license and granted the license to Südostschweiz Radio AG. There was no ordinary appeal against this ruling.
Radio Alpin Grischa AG subsequently lodged an appeal with the Federal Administrative Court. It requested that the ruling from January be set aside and a new decision be made.
No grounds for appeal
Radio Alpin Grischa AG argued that the Federal Administrative Court had inadvertently omitted significant facts from the file in its ruling of January 23, 2025. The court had overlooked the fact that Radio Alpin Grischa AG had provided for the required number of programmers in the licensing procedure.
The court has now come to the conclusion that there are no grounds for appeal and therefore no new decision needs to be made on the award of the license, as it writes in a press release.
The license application does not contain any clear and unambiguous information on the number of positions in the programming area. Furthermore, the legal justification of a judgment cannot be called into question with an application for revision.
Somedia sees itself vindicated
"We have always trusted that the court proceedings would turn out in our favor - and this has been confirmed once again," said Silvio Lebrument, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Somedia, commenting on the Federal Administrative Court's decision in a press release on Wednesday.
Revisions of legally binding judgments are very rare. The legal conditions for this are very high, as legal certainty would otherwise be jeopardized. This decision by the Federal Administrative Court is final and cannot be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
The Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) unexpectedly awarded the license for a local radio station to Roger Schawinski and Stefan Bühler's Radio Alpin AG on 11 January 2024. Südostschweiz Radio AG successfully lodged an appeal against this decision with the Federal Administrative Court. (Judgement A-1452/2025 of 19.11.2025)
