Sweden can try Swiss boss Schneiter in landmark corporate crimes case

Lundin Petroleum bosses Alex Schneiter (left) and Ian Lundin (right) are accused of complicity in war crimes in southern Sudan in 1997-2003. Keystone / Fredrik Sandberg

Sweden’s Supreme Court has ruled that Swiss citizen Alex Schneiter, a former boss at Swedish oil firm Lundin, can be tried in Sweden for alleged “complicity in war crimes” in Sudan.

The court on Thursday threw out Schneiter’s argument that Sweden did not have jurisdiction because he is neither a citizen nor a resident of the Nordic country. It ruled that his connections with Sweden were enough.

Sweden’s government gave a green light in 2018External link for the Public Prosecutor to charge Schneiter and former Lundin chairman Ian Lundin for assisting suspected crimes in Sudan between 1997 and 2003 by fueling the country’s oil wars in the south. Lundin is a Swedish citizen and resident in Switzerland. Both Schneiter, who was head of exploration at the time, and Lundin deny the allegations.

They are being prosecuted under the principle of “universal jurisdiction”. This allows, under certain conditions, anyone to be prosecuted anywhere in the world for serious international crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes), for which there is no statute of limitations (time limit for prosecution).

NGOs and human rights groups have hailed this as a landmark case. Philip Grant, director of Swiss NGO TRIAL International, which promotes and supports universal jurisdiction cases, tweeted that “to my knowledge, this would mark the first time a corporate actor – here a Swiss national acting as a Swedish oil company executive – would be tried on the basis of universal jurisdiction”.

Hardly any such cases have been brought to date. However, some cases have also been brought in FranceExternal link, notably against executives of the Lafarge cement group, now part of the Swiss company Holcim, for complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria.