Four bankers have lost an appeal against Swiss convictions for failing to exercise due diligence in financial transactions when setting up accounts for a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, two sources with knowledge of the ruling said.
Switzerland’s highest court has upheld a judgement against the four former employees of Gazprombank (Switzerland), who cannot be identified under Swiss reporting restrictions, the sources told Reuters on Friday.
Lawyers for the bankers declined to comment on the failure of their appeal. The court declined a request for comment. The men, three Russians and one Swiss, had appealed to the Supreme Court after losing an appeal at a lower court in 2024.
The bankers, who denied any wrongdoing, were found guilty by Zurich’s District Court in March 2023 and handed suspended fines totalling more than 450,000 Swiss francs ($574,000).
The court ruled that the men had failed to verify whether the money in accounts opened by Sergey Roldugin actually belonged to him, with indications the concert cellist could be a so-called strawman used to hide the real owner of the funds.
In Switzerland, banks are obliged to reject or terminate business relationships if there are doubts about the identity of the contracting party.
Roldugin had told the New York Times that he was certainly not a businessman and did not himself own millions, according to the original indictment.
The Kremlin has previously dismissed any suggestion that Roldugin’s funds are linked to the president as “Putinophobia”.
Roldugin, godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter Maria, deposited millions of Swiss francs in an account at the Swiss branch of Gazprombank in Zurich between 2014 and 2016, the first court was told.
The accounts were closed in 2016, while the Swiss bank ceased operations in 2024.
Swiss law meant clarifications were required over how Roldugin’s accounts received dividends worth millions of Swiss francs a year and how he had acquired a 20% stake in a media company with a value of more than 100 million francs.
Lawyers for the bankers argued during the trial it was plausible that Roldugin was rich because he was friends with Putin. Although such favouritism may be frowned upon in Switzerland, this was not relevant, the defence said.
