Michael Lauber

--- CONTENT ---
Michael Christoph Lauber (* 12). December 1965 in Olten; legal residence in Winterthur and Lucerne) is a Swiss lawyer. From 2012 to the end of August 2020, he was Swiss Federal Prosecutor and thus Head of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

Professional career
In 1992, Michael Lauber graduated from law at the University of Bern and obtained the law patent. He is a member of the Zofingia Student Association. In the Swiss army, he was last commander of an armored staff company in the rank of captain.

From 1992 to 1993 he was an investigating judge in the canton of Bern, then until 1995 head of the special investigation I of the Bern criminal police. He then headed the Central Office for Organised Crime at the Federal Police Office for five years until 2000. From 2000 to 2001 he worked as a lawyer in Zurich and was Managing Director of PolyReg, a self-regulatory organization of financial intermediaries.

From 2001 Lauber worked in the Principality of Liechtenstein. Until 2004 he was head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and from 2004 to 2010 Managing Director of the Liechtenstein Banking Association (LBV). From the beginning of 2010 to the end of 2011, he was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Financial Market Authority Liechtenstein (FMA).

Lauber has also been a money laundering evaluator for Russia, Cyprus, Oman, Luxembourg and Monaco as well as an expert on serious economic crime, organised crime and money laundering in various projects of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Central Asia. He was a speaker at various national and international committees and forums on money laundering and a lecturer at the University of Liechtenstein.

On 28 September 2011, the United Federal Assembly elected him as Federal Prosecutor for the 2012–2015 term of office, with 203 out of 206 valid votes on a proposal from the Judicial Commission of the Swiss Councils. He replaced Erwin Beyeler, who was not re-elected in June 2011. On June 17, 2015, Lauber was confirmed with 195 out of 216 valid votes in office for the term of office 2016 to 2019.

Process complex of world football
In 2015, Lauber opened proceedings against four members of the organizing committee of the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The procedures should clarify whether controversial payments to, among others, the then Vice President of FIFA in Qatar were a vote purchase for the World Cup award to Germany. Later, more football procedures were added, a total of almost two dozen. Among other things, it was about TV rights deals, which the later FIFA President Gianni Infantino had signed as UEFA chief lawyer.

In June 2019, the Federal Criminal Court criticised Lauber’s administration in the football procedure complex. Above all, the court reprimanded secret meetings with FIFA President Infantino, which Lauber described as informal. Lauber had not recorded the meetings with Infantino. Already i