AMCOR case shows powerlessness of the authorities
Environmental scandal on Lake Constance – Part 3
Environmental scandal on Lake Constance – Part 3
Poison in the lake, gap in the law: The AMCOR case shows the powerlessness of the authorities
At two an accident on the site of the Australian packaging group Amcor Flexibles Rorschach AG were
2020 and 2021 the Lake Constance and the Thur dirty with toxic fire foam. The company got away with a minor penalty. A problematic law is responsible for this: it is counterproductive for the punishment of companies.
The AMCOR case shows that an environmental offense is faulty, it is quickly dismissed as a trivial.
Image of the first accident on the AMCOR site in December 2020.
Over 300 cubic meters of wastewater gathered in the retention basin on the area. These should be disposed of properly. Instead, they were declared incorrectly and got into the Thur and consequently into the Rhine. All of this, even though Amcor was aware of the risks, as documents presented to this newspaper.
Why is the punishment for Amcor so deep?
In the AMCOR case, no responsible individual was searched for. Based on the Water Protection Act, the St.Gallen public prosecutor’s office “applied a special regulation of administrative criminal law to simplify the criminal investigation”. Specifically: Article 7. This provides for a default liability of companies with buses of a maximum of CHF 5,000. Actually only for less serious crimes in which the person responsible is dispensed with – and for which « buses in the minor area » would be intended, it says in an environmental law report that the University of Bern 2016 created on behalf of the Federal Office for Environment (BAFU).
Why is this special regulation counterproductive?
If this special regulation is used, the company is convicted of a crime that was not caused by its fault or bad organization, the BAFU report says. Therefore, this law « does not represent a corporate penalty. »
It is also an opinion that Monika Simmler, professor of criminal law, criminal procedural law and criminology at the University of St.Gallen (HSG) and St.Gallen SP cantonal councilor: « This law article is a convenience standard. » This is because it is a deviation from the criminal principles. « Usually the following applies: no punishment without guilt, » she says.
This special regulation therefore only applies to trivial and is used if the investigation would be disproportionate, says Simmler. « So it can only be used for real trivial offenses – in the deep injustice area – » says Simmler. In the case of possibly serious offenses such as the accident in Goldach, however, an elaborate examination is justified.
Monika Simmler, professor of criminal law, criminal procedural law and criminology at the University of St.Gallen (HSG) and St.Gallen SP cantonal councilor.
Image from the day of the incident.
The resources are missing to cases like Amcor tooecho?
Adaptation of the “Lex Schweizerhalle” would probably not be an all -round remedy, but it may be helpful: « It will always be difficult and complex to determine within a company, » says Simmler. The more effective combating of environmental and other corporate offenses is primarily the resources: « We have massively overloaded law enforcement authorities. »
Switzerland has had a federal criminal procedure since 2011, before that it was cantonal. Although everything has now been organized uniformly, « since then we have had a very clear increase in the duration of the procedure and the number of procedural steps, » says Simmler. Having someone thousands of pending cases of domestic violence on the table, be it obvious to do a case like Amcor as quickly as possible by punitive order.
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