Switzerland-US SECO/OFAC Memorandum of Understanding on sanctions enforcement cooperation

Mechanism

The MoU establishes an institutional information-sharing channel between OFAC (the principal US sanctions-enforcement authority) and SECO (the Swiss authority responsible for the Embargoes Act and implementing regulations against Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea, and other sanctioned jurisdictions). Specific cooperation elements disclosed in the joint release:

• Coordination on identifying and addressing sanctions violations —

case-level cooperation on specific investigations.

• Designated points of contact at both OFAC and SECO to manage

information exchange.

• Regular meetings between OFAC and SECO officials to discuss

collaboration efforts, sanctions-related activities, and concerns.

• Joint training sessions for OFAC and SECO staff on sanctions

compliance and the legal frameworks for cross-border data/information sharing.

• Exchange of technical knowledge and resources on sanctions

investigations and enforcement.

The MoU is explicitly not legally binding and contains no obligation on either side to create, share, or maintain information that does not otherwise exist; either side may decline a request and seek alternative channels.

Downstream implications

• Marks a structural shift in Swiss sanctions posture from mechanical

alignment with EU packages (the longstanding Swiss approach under the Embargoes Act) toward active bilateral enforcement cooperation with a non-EU partner. Companies with Swiss-booked exposure to Russia/Belarus/Iran sanctions regimes should expect a higher probability that SECO information surfaces in OFAC enforcement actions and vice versa.

• Context: SECO has visibly stepped up enforcement under the

Embargoes Act — Swiss law-firm trackers report at least 13 administrative criminal decisions issued by SECO between March 2024 and July 2025 on Ukraine/Belarus Ordinance breaches, an order of magnitude above the historical baseline. The MoU is the international-cooperation leg of that domestic enforcement uplift.

• Reinforces the existing US-UK OFSI cooperation channel as the

template — the next likely MoU partners (per SECO comments) are EU member states or other allies operating their own sanctions regimes.

• Severity 2 (qual): the instrument is procedural and non-binding,

with no immediate change to designations, licensing standards, or penalty exposure. Material as a regime-architecture signal rather than a concrete compliance-cost change.

Open questions

• Will the MoU produce a measurable uptick in joint OFAC/SECO

enforcement actions on Russia-circumvention cases (Swiss commodities-trading, Swiss-booked correspondent banking)?

• Does SECO follow with similar MoUs with the UK OFSI, EU, Canada,

or Australia, building the multilateral enforcement-cooperation web that the joint release foreshadows?

• How does the MoU interact with Swiss bank-secrecy and data-protection

constraints (FADP) that historically limited cross-border enforcement-information sharing?