Top Swiss Prosecutor Wins Victory as Watchdog Rebuffed Over Fifa

(Bloomberg) --

Switzerland’s top prosecutor scored a legal victory as he seeks to shake off a probe into his own alleged improprieties while investigating corruption at soccer’s world governing body Fifa.

Switzerland’s supreme court has refused to hear an appeal by the watchdog overseeing the office of Attorney General Michael Lauber, it said in a ruling released on Wednesday, essentially leaving a lower administrative court’s decision that went in favor of Lauber in place.

The Supervisory Authority of the Office of the Attorney General had in early July appointed Peter Haenni, an outside constitutional law professor and expert, to investigate whether Lauber acted inappropriately by holding three undocumented meetings with Fifa’s Secretary General Gianni Infantino. Later that month, Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court ruled that Haenni’s appointment was null and void as the watchdog did not have the power to name an external expert to investigate Lauber.

Lauber was narrowly re-elected in September to a third term as the country’s top prosecutor after he was caught up in a scandal over undisclosed meetings he held with the boss of Fifa amid an ongoing corruption investigation. Lauber said he didn’t conceal the meetings and that they were necessary for the criminal probe.

An official at the supervisory authority said it didn’t have an immediate comment when reached by telephone. The Attorney General’s Office has taken note of the decision, a spokeswoman said, declining to comment further.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hugo Miller in Geneva at hugomiller@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Peter Chapman, Christopher Elser

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