Swiss Ski vice-president Schmidhalter charged with fraud

The public prosecutor’s office in the Swiss canton of Valais has charged Swiss Ski vice-president Claude-Alain Schmidhalter with fraud and breach of trust.

Schmidhalter, who is also chair of the organising committee for the 2027 Alpine World Ski Championships, is due to appear in court on October 27.

Together with an accomplice, Schmidhalter is alleged to have defrauded his former business partner of a large severance payment. The two had run an engineering firm in the Upper Valais, as reported by the newspaper Blick and confirmed by the Valais judicial authorities to the Keystone-SDA news agency.

In the event that one of them retired, the two managing directors had agreed that the remaining owner would pay the other a severance payment. According to the Valais public prosecutor’s office, this payment was made, albeit at a lower amount than agreed.

To avoid paying the full sum, Schmidhalter and his accomplice are alleged to have reduced the company’s profits by transferring them to another company. According to the indictment, the retired business partner thus suffered a loss of over CHF300,000.

According to the indictment, the Valais Public Prosecutor’s Office is seeking a suspended prison sentence of 23 months, a fine of CHF10,000 and compensation of CHF55,000 to be paid to the victim.

The two defendants are therefore due to appear before the Brig-Glis District Court on October 27 to answer charges of fraud.

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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.