Losses in the billions This is how the perfidious scam of the corporate burglars works
Dominik Müller
7.4.2025

The losses run into the billions. Corporate raiders take over SMEs that are already on the verge of insolvency. In their name, they accumulate further debts that are never paid.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Corporate morticians take over insolvent companies on the brink of bankruptcy in order to delay it and obtain services at the expense of third parties - in the knowledge that they will not be able to pay them.
- Creditors, employees and the general public bear massive financial losses, while the judiciary and law enforcement often intervene too late.
- One expert advises consistent credit checks on suppliers to avoid falling for corporate morticians.
What does a corporate mortician do? If you're not already familiar with the term, you might imagine that it brings a failed company to a dignified and comforting end for everyone.
This is pretty much the opposite of what a corporate mortician actually does.
The corporate mortician takes over, usually for a fee, a company that is already no longer viable but not yet in bankruptcy proceedings. In some cases, the previous beneficial owners have already transferred everything of value to themselves or other companies. Even more important for them: they keep a clean slate, the company only goes bankrupt when they no longer have anything to do with it.
The corporate mortician delays the bankruptcy proceedings as long as possible and often obtains further services or goods at the expense of bona fide suppliers, for example cell phones, computers or even leases cars, as the lawyer Oliver Kälin writes in a paper on the subject. The company is effectively insolvent, and the mortician never intended to pay for the goods purchased.
At some point, bankruptcy proceedings can no longer be avoided. When all the figures are on the table, it becomes clear that there is nothing left to pay off the debts that have accumulated. The creditors are left empty-handed.
Corporate mortician has nothing left to lose
The judiciary calls this offense bankruptcy fraud. The canton of Zurich declared several years ago that the damage caused in this way amounted to several hundred million francs a year. The business information company Creditreform writes of several billion francs of unpaid debts throughout Switzerland due to bankruptcy fraud.
"The corporate bankrupt is a person who has nothing left to lose," describes Raoul Egeli, CEO of Creditreform, in an interview with blue News. "He often has debts himself and his credit rating is so bad that another bankruptcy won't change anything."
In principle, he only provides his name for entry in the commercial register and is available to debt enforcement and bankruptcy offices as a contact person, is how the "NZZ" describes the service provided by the company mortician. He collects a low four-figure sum for this, as shown by various media reports on cases that ended up in court.
An intermediary often acts before the mortician takes over. The person responsible for the ailing company contacts him, he organizes the mortician and handles the transfer. He also usually collects a fee in the four-figure range. He is the professional who ensures that the prescribed procedures are carried out correctly. Or at least that they are not obviously abusive.
By the time the judiciary intervenes, the damage has already been done
However, the fact that corporate morticians are breaking the law only becomes apparent when it is too late. As a rule, they do not take any responsibility for the company that has been entrusted to them. They do not take care of the accounts, do not make payments - and often do not transfer wages and social benefits. This makes them guilty of failing to keep accounts. By accumulating further debts, they are also guilty of mismanagement and, in some cases, fraud, as lawyer Kälin lists.
According to Kälin, the intermediary who makes it easier for those responsible for a bankrupt company to get rid of their debts with a signature may be guilty of incitement to mismanagement or favoritism.
According to Egeli, there are people who have buried well over 100 companies. This is only possible if no one notices that the same person has taken over another company after dozens of bankruptcies. This is despite the fact that the Zurich cantonal police, for example, have a special commission that focuses on bankruptcy investigations. At the request of blue News, the cantonal police do not provide any details and refer to the crime statistics and the accountability report of the high court, in which evidence can be found to combat the abuse of bankruptcy proceedings.
Egeli is convinced that the main reason why company morticians are not being stopped is that there are still creditors who deliver without checking their creditworthiness and the public prosecutor's offices, which have to conduct the proceedings, are chronically overloaded. "It is primarily up to the creditors to consider to whom they provide products on account or advance payments." Before someone lends money to a friend privately, this person usually also considers whether they are likely to get the money back. The same applies in the business world, Egeli draws a comparison.
Checking creditworthiness costs money, but not doing so can be even more expensive
Anyone supplying a company with a computer or cell phone to order should first clarify the company's payment history. This is time-consuming and can be disproportionately expensive if the amount involved is relatively small.
Egeli adds: "The credit check can be integrated directly into the online store's ordering process, for example. It should not be the case that paying customers have to finance the bad debt losses."
This is the case, for example, when large mail order companies include such losses directly in their prices.
Those who do not want to or cannot make their honest customers pay for the losses are dependent on public data such as that from the commercial register to check their creditworthiness. However, they can hardly obtain an extract from the debt collection register for each individual sale of a telephone.
There are also specialized companies such as Crif, Intrum or Creditreform, which collect and process information about companies to check their creditworthiness. But here too, the effort and cost of the check must be in reasonable proportion to the potential damage of an unpaid bill. Egeli explains: "Of course, it makes a difference whether it's 250 francs or 400,000 francs - the higher the claim, the more in-depth the information we provide."
Creditreform claims to have over one million Swiss companies in its database. Its own software analyzes these for suspected cases of bankruptcy. In 2024, more than 800 such suspected cases were identified.
Companies that have the creditworthiness of their customers monitored by Creditreform are informed immediately. "However, we also pass on the suspicious cases to the authorities," emphasizes Egeli. Abuse of bankruptcy proceedings is an official offense that the judicial authorities must also pursue without a creditor requesting it.
The main victims: Employees of the bankrupt company
Creditreform has also already estimated the damage caused by unpaid invoices: 12 billion francs are missing from the coffers of all those who supply products on account in good faith. The unpaid debts also include taxes, insurance premiums and the like.
The hardest hit by bankruptcy is often not those who are not paid for a delivered product or work performed. In many cases, the employees of the bankrupt company are the ones who suffer the most damage, emphasizes Egeli. "Wages and employer contributions for social benefits or occupational pensions are often no longer paid." As the companies are the first to pay no taxes, the general public also shares in the loss, he explains.
This is all the more disturbing when companies are founded with the intention of never paying any taxes, but simply offering particularly cheap craft services, for example, and handing the company over to a company mortician when things get dicey. According to various reports and publications on the subject, this happens time and again in the construction and cleaning trades as well as in the catering industry.
Bankruptcy proceedings are of little benefit to creditors
Finally, those who do not receive the money to which they are entitled only have the option of filing for bankruptcy proceedings against the company in question. According to Egeli, the average advance on costs for the proceedings is around CHF 5,000 and is a major source of income for the bankruptcy offices.
However, the probability of creditors receiving their money is close to zero. "In 98.3 percent of cases, creditors come away empty-handed." The bankruptcy dividend - i.e. what creditors receive after the liquidation of an insolvent company - is on average less than 3 percent of what the bankrupt company owes them.
This means that a creditor who is owed 150,000 francs by the liquidated company would receive a statistical average of 5,000 francs - roughly the same amount as they would have to pay for the proceedings to be opened in the first place.
It is therefore often not worth fighting for money against an insolvent company. This in turn makes it easier for company morticians and intermediaries to continue their business undetected. Because that's their livelihood: Staying under the radar for as long as possible until there's nothing left to take.
For Raoul Egeli, the remedy is clear: "Consistently check the creditworthiness of customers and systematically monitor existing customers so that you know when a mortician is on the board."
In other words, the supplying companies must protect themselves from falling for corporate morticians.