On 5 December 2022, the Secretariat of the Swiss Competition Commission (Secretariat of the COMCO) opened a preliminary investigation against 34 banking institutions in six German-speaking regions of Switzerland. The reason for this is a possible agreement in violation of competition law pursuant to Article 5 of the Swiss Cartel Act (CartA) regarding salary information of bank employees. According to the press release, a large number of banks in German-speaking Switzerland are alleged to have regularly exchanged information on salaries and salary components of various categories of employees.
In recent years, the labour market has increasingly come under the scrutiny of competition authorities worldwide. With the present preliminary investigation, possible agreements in the labour market are now also for the first time being examined under competition law in Switzerland. This is particularly controversial against the background that the economically most significant labour market-related agreements between social partners in collective labour law proceedings are excluded from the application of the CartA. The preliminary investigation thus raises some interesting and challenging questions.
The outcome of the preliminary investigation is of great relevance for the future practice of the COMCO and companies operating in Switzerland. We will closely follow and inform here again about all relevant developments in that regard.
The press release can be found here (in German, French, Italian and English).