Former Swiss Bankers Association president Pierre Mirabaud was convicted of bribery and aggravated money laundering on Tuesday over SFr82.3 million ($101.7 million) in payments to a Kuwaiti official, receiving a two-year suspended prison sentence.

The 77-year-old was a former partner at Geneva private bank Mirabaud & Cie, where he worked for 30 years before retiring as a partner in 2009 and continuing as a consultant until 2012. He admitted the key facts of the case during a half-day hearing at Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona.

The case centred on Fahad Al-Rajaan, former director-general of Kuwait’s Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS), who was accused of accepting improper payments in return for decisions to place pension assets with Mirabaud and invest in funds partly managed by the banking group.

By the end of 2012, PIFSS held about $595.3 million in the investment funds, according to the court. Mirabaud was separately convicted of aggravated money laundering involving 122 transfers worth almost SFr77 million, which prosecutors said were designed to obscure the origin of the payments and hinder their recovery.

Reuters reported that prosecutors sought a 24-month suspended sentence, citing Mirabaud’s age, lack of previous convictions and cooperation with investigators. Swiss law allows corruption and money laundering offences to carry fines or prison terms of up to five years.

Mirabaud told the court he had made a “very grave error of judgment” and acknowledged that he had personally earned $1.8 million from the arrangement. He was ordered to pay SFr82,000 in legal and court costs and will serve a two-year probation period.

His lawyer, Saverio Lembo, said the sentence reflected his client’s cooperation with authorities throughout the investigation, adding that Mirabaud “now accepts the consequences of his actions”. The former banker was tried under Switzerland’s simplified procedure, under which a defendant accepts the facts and a proposed sentence is submitted to the court.

Al-Rajaan, who led Kuwait’s pension fund for almost three decades, was later convicted in absentia in Kuwait of corruption and embezzlement. He died in London in 2022.

Mirabaud & Cie, founded in Geneva in 1819, was not a defendant in the Swiss proceedings. The bank declined to comment, while Mirabaud’s lawyer said the former partner had fully cooperated with judicial authorities and that the matter was now closed.

The conviction follows separate regulatory action involving the bank. Swiss financial regulator FINMA said in 2024 that it had confiscated SFr12.7 million in unlawfully generated profits over breaches of financial market law and money-laundering obligations.

---