Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court on Monday fined Geneva private bank Lombard Odier 3 million Swiss francs and ordered the confiscation of more than 400 million francs in assets tied to a criminal network built around the daughter of Uzbekistan’s late president.

Lombard Odier itself was convicted under Article 102 paragraph 2 of the Swiss Criminal Code for failing to take all reasonable and necessary organizational measures to prevent the offense committed by its employee. Prosecutors said that, although the bank had evidence suggesting part of the assets originated in Uzbek telecom corruption, its anti-money-laundering (AML) compliance bodies “did not take sufficient measures to ensure that further enquiries regarding the origin and economic purpose of these funds were conducted and duly documented.”

The Swiss institution said in a statement that it disagreed with the ruling and would appeal, describing the action as a “limited fine” and with no compensatory claim against it. The bank had a “robust” anti-money-laundering (AML) program at the time that was compliant with Swiss criminal law, according to the statement. 

The court’s Criminal Chamber simultaneously dismissed the proceedings against Gulnara Karimova, ending a case that has run for more than a decade. The chamber found that Karimova, who is imprisoned in Uzbekistan, could not be held responsible for her absence from the Swiss proceedings. With no prospect of her release or extradition before the statute of limitations expires, the court held that no sentence could be issued against her and dismissed the charges of participation in and support of a criminal organization, money laundering and acceptance of bribes by foreign public officials.

A second defendant, identified in the anonymized ruling only as B. and resident in Russia, saw proceedings dismissed on similar grounds, the court citing a long-term, non-culpable inability to travel to Switzerland. He had faced charges including forgery of documents and aiding and abetting bribery.

The court separately convicted a former Lombard Odier account manager, named in the ruling only as C., of aggravated money laundering and imposed a 24-month custodial sentence, fully suspended with a two-year probationary period. Officials concluded that the banker was aware of indications that some of the assets in the accounts he oversaw stemmed from corruption in the Uzbek telecommunications market, but “settled for superficial checks” and failed to establish the origin and economic purpose of the funds. 

The transactions amounted to more than $120 million in credits and more than $20 million in debits, flowing through accounts at the bank between mid-2011 and 2012 to and from institutions in Cyprus, Latvia, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

In assessing the predicate offenses, the chamber found the existence of a criminal organization known as “the Office,” which collected corrupt payments from foreign telecommunications companies seeking to operate in Uzbekistan. The payments were made to secure the influence of Karimova, then the president’s daughter, and were routed through opaque transactions into accounts held by Office-linked companies at banks in several countries, including Lombard Odier in Geneva.

The court ordered confiscation of more than 400 million francs in Switzerland. Among the largest items: all assets in two accounts at Lombard Odier in the name of a company designated F. Ltd, worth $142.5 million and 280.4 million francs as of December 2025, plus a separate forfeiture of $99.6 million from one of those accounts and an equivalent claim of $18.2 million against the company in favor of the Swiss Confederation.

Also forfeited were roughly 23.8 million francs held in Karimova’s own account at another Geneva bank, a piece of real estate in her name, and accounts at four further banks holding tens of millions of dollars. Freezes on three other relationships were released.

Copies of the ruling go to Swiss financial regulator FINMA, the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS), the federal police and the Geneva cantonal tax administration.