Switzerland's Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has concluded enforcement proceedings against Zurich-based Wendelspiess Partners AG, imposing long-term industry bans on two senior individuals and revoking the firm's portfolio management licence following serious breaches of financial services regulations.
FINMA launched proceedings in early 2025 after receiving a report from a supervisory organisation, uncovering evidence that the wealth manager had invested client funds into a proprietary foreign fund — established by the firm and managed in-house since 2021 — that was experiencing significant liquidity problems.
The regulator's investigation revealed a pattern of serious misconduct. Wendelspiess Partners AG channelled the assets of nearly all of its more than 400 clients — the majority of whom had moderate to limited financial knowledge and described themselves as risk-averse — into the in-house fund without obtaining their consent.
The fund, which held assets under management of over CHF 83 million at the end of 2024, invested predominantly in a single investment company domiciled in the canton of Zug and its affiliates, resulting in dangerous risk concentration. It now faces the prospect of a total loss.
FINMA found that the firm systematically failed to conduct mandatory suitability assessments and inadequately disclosed conflicts of interest — including the fact that Wendelspiess Partners AG and several of its directors personally held shares in the fund. The firm also withheld material information from the regulator during its licensing procedure.
The regulator concluded that client interests were "systematically subordinated" to those of the firm, constituting serious breaches of conduct obligations under Switzerland's Financial Services Act (FinSA).
The ruling, which also sees the firm enter bankruptcy, is not yet final and may be appealed to the Federal Administrative Court.
Why it matters
The case illustrates how self-dealing structures — where a firm creates, manages, and invests client assets into its own fund while holding personal stakes in it — can go undetected until liquidity problems surface, particularly when conflicts of interest are not disclosed to clients or regulators.
FINMA's finding that suitability assessments were systematically skipped for clients who self-identified as risk-averse underscores a specific compliance obligation under Switzerland's Financial Services Act: advisers must match investment products to individual client risk profiles, not apply a uniform strategy across a client book.
The regulator's conclusion that material information was withheld during the licensing procedure signals that FINMA treats disclosure failures to the authority itself — not just to clients — as independently sanctionable conduct.
