I. Introduction
The first part of this article demonstrated that Article 305(bis) Swiss Criminal Code (SCC) provides a sufficiently broad regulatory framework to address, from a law enforcement perspective, money laundering activities that may occur in the Swiss art market, with the difficulty lying less in the provision itself than in its implementation (www.lawofthearts.com/14en). This observation necessitates a closer look at the upstream factors. If law enforcement struggles to achieve its objectives, the real issue then becomes that of prevention. In Switzerland, this task falls primarily to the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA). This imposes due diligence obligations on those subject to it, designed to detect suspicious transactions and report them in order to prevent money laundering.
The question remains as to who, within the art market ecosystem (gallery owners, independent dealers, auction houses, free zones, etc.), is subject to these rules, and to what extent. It is precisely this question that the second part of this article addresses, by examining how the AMLA’s preventive measures apply to the art market.
II. The AMLA: an overview of its scope and obligations
Essentially, until recently, the AMLA applied to two main categories of regulated entities.
On the one hand, financial intermediaries (Art. 2(1)(a) AMLA), namely banks in particular, but also, more broadly, ‘persons who, in the course of their professional activities, accept, hold in custody or assist in the placement or transfer of assets belonging to third parties’ (Art. 2(3) AMLA and Art. 7 AMLO).
On the other hand, traders (Art. 2(1)(b) AMLA), namely natural or legal persons who, in the course of their business, trade in goods and receive cash as payment, provided that they accept, in the course of a transaction, more than CHF 100,000.- in cash (Art. 8a(1) AMLA; Article 14(1) AMLO)).
Since 1st October 2026, a third category has been added to this list: advisers (Art. 2(1)(c) AMLA; RO 2026 322). Adopted in the wake of the new Act on the Transparency of Legal Persons (LETA), this reform breaks with the traditional logic of the AMLA: it is no longer necessary to hold third-party assets to be subject to the Act; the mere provision of advice may now suffice, provided that such advice is given in the context of a financial transaction (Art. 2(3)(bis) AMLA on this point, see in particular Braidi/Bacharach, Nouveau régime d’assujettissement des conseillers à la LBA : suis-je concerné?, Revue de l’avocat 2026, p. 372, p. 372). However, neither the Act nor the Ordinance defines this concept of a ‘financial transaction’; according to recent legal scholarship, it should therefore be linked to the activities mentioned directly in Article 2(3)bis of the AMLA (Braidi/Bacharach, p. 373; Stamm/Kern/Nagel, ‘GWG-Unterstellung von Anwältinnen und Anwälten: Praxisfragen’, Revue de l’avocat 2026, p. 360, p. 363 ff.). In particular, of the six legal transactions provided for by the Act, the formation and administration of companies (in Switzerland, this is purely non-operational) could be linked to the art market and be of relevance to our analysis; we shall therefore return to this point below (Stamm/Kern/Nagel, p. 363). The advice must also relate to a specific, rather than an abstract, transaction (Braidi/Bacharach, p. 373; Stamm/Kern/Nagel, p. 363).
Furthermore, the AMLA remains a law governing ‘activities’ rather than ‘professions’, which implies that, regardless of the sector in which the professional concerned operates, they may fall within the scope of this law – including, therefore, as a professional in the art market; we shall return to this point.
When a person is subject to the AMLA, this gives rise to a number of due diligence obligations which, in particular, give concrete form to the well-known principles in the banking and financial sector: Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Transactions (KYT). Those subject to the Act are therefore required to verify the identity of the contracting party (section 3 of the AMLA), identify the beneficial owner (section 4 of the AMLA) and, in the event of reasonable suspicion of unlawful activities, they must report this to the Money Laundering Reporting Office, the MROS (section 9 of the AMLA), such a report in turn triggering a number of obligations (see Art. 9a ff. AMLA).
III. The application of the AMLA to the art market
Unlike European Union and United Kingdom law, which have expressly subject art market participants to anti-money laundering obligations since 2018 and 2020 respectively (Article 3(3)(i) and (j) AMLR); The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulation 2019, Amendment of Part 2, 4(6)(f), 2019, No. 1511; Bastian, pp. 147 and 759 ff.), the AMLA does not explicitly subject these operators to such obligations. It therefore remains to be determined whether, and to what extent, the obligations set out above may apply in this sector.
i) Art dealers
Firstly, with regard to art dealers – that is, natural or legal persons acting in their own name and on their own account who trade in works of art on a professional basis (Kern, ‘Gedlwäscherei im Kunsthandel’, SJZ 2021, p. 383) – they are subject to the AMLA only in exceptional cases. They are subject to the Act in their capacity as dealers only if they accept more than CHF 100,000.- in cash as part of a transaction, a scenario that is becoming increasingly rare in practice (Bastian, N 802). Furthermore, this regime applies only when the dealer sells a work for cash, and not when they purchase one (Bastian, N 1255).
In principle, classification as a financial intermediary is ruled out, even in the view of the Swiss authorities (FINMA, Circular 2011/1 – Financial intermediary activities within the meaning of the AMLA, para. 89; FDF, Anti-Money Laundering Supervisory Authority Practice relating to Article 2(3) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 29 October 2008, N 204; see also Cassani/Heninger, Kunsthandel und Geldwäscherei – neue Risiken, neue Sorgfaltspflichten, in Mosimann/Schönenberger (eds.) Kunst & Recht 2016/Art & Law 2016, Bern 2016, p. 75 ff., p. 86; Kern, p. 382; Bastian, N 663).
It might nevertheless be conceivable to regard an art dealer as a financial intermediary in specific cases, for example where they receive funds from a collector, hold them in trust and then acquire the artwork in their own name before handing it over to the collector, or where they are directly involved in financing the acquisition of the artwork (Art Lending; on this practice, see in particular Tistounet, ‘Art as an investment product’, Jusletter 1210), provided that the credit granted in this context is not merely an ancillary service to a main contract (Art. 3(f) AMLO).
The application of the AMLA therefore appears to be limited in relation to art dealers.
ii) Auction houses
Auction houses are, in principle, not subject to the AMLA either, as their activities are not regarded by the authorities as those of a financial intermediary (FINMA, Circular 2011/1 – Activities of financial intermediaries within the meaning of the AMLA, para. 89; FDF, Practice of the Supervisory Authority regarding anti-money laundering in relation to Article 2(3) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 29 October 2008, N 204 ff.; see also Raschèr/Zollinger, § 8 Geldwäscherei im Kunsthandel – 6. Kapitel : Kulturgütertransfer, in: Mosimann/Renold/Raschèr (eds.), Culture, Art, Law. Swiss and International Law, 2nd significantly expanded edition, Basel 2020, p. 551 ff., N 645; Kern, p. 383; Bastian, N 672). The situation might be different if they were to transfer the proceeds of the sale to a person other than the supplier of the item sold or engage in art lending (subject to section 3(f) AMLO); in such cases, subjection to the Anti-Money Laundering Act might be conceivable.
The question of whether an auction house is subject to the AMLA as a dealer remains, however, largely theoretical. This would require the auction house to accept, as part of a transaction, a cash payment exceeding the legal threshold of CHF 100,000.-. However, most Swiss auction houses have set their own cash acceptance limits well below this amount, which in principle exempts them from the obligations under the AMLA as dealers.
iii) Free ports
With regard to free zones – warehouses intended for the storage of undeclared goods (Art. 62(1) and 63(1) of the Customs Act) – their activity of holding assets belonging to third parties might, at first glance, fall within the scope of Art. 2(3) AMLA). However, Article 2(1)(a)(1) AMLO expressly excludes the transport and physical safekeeping of assets, such as works of art, from the scope of financial intermediation activities under the AMLA (Bastian, N 268). Free ports are therefore, in principle, not subject to this Act. Anti-money laundering controls rely primarily on financial intermediaries and/or dealers as per the AMLA involved in transactions relating to free ports.
iv) Advisers
In the art market, the new regime applicable to advisers could come into play in certain circumstances. This would, in principle, be the case where transactions involving works of art entail the creation of non-operational legal structures in Switzerland (which are also operational abroad). As noted in the first part of this article (www.lawofthearts.com/14en), non-operational structures, such as holding structures for example, are frequently used in the art market, particularly to avoid publicly disclosing the identity of the purchaser. An adviser who sets up, administers or acts as the registered office for such a structure could therefore fall within the scope of the AMLA, provided that all the criteria of the new scope of application are met.
However, this observation calls for two qualifications. On the one hand, advice relating to the acquisition and sale of works of art strictly speaking (Art Advisory) does not, as things stand, appear to be necessarily subject to the AMLA, unless it forms part of one of the legal transactions mentioned in Article 2(3)(bis) of the AMLA. Furthermore, as these new provisions came into force only a few weeks ago, there is not yet sufficient hindsight to pinpoint precisely which activities are covered by the revised AMLA, so caution remains advisable.
v) Conclusion : essentially indirect prevention
The result is an incomplete application of the AMLA in the Swiss art market. Indeed, to date, the main bulwark against money laundering is not provided by the market participants themselves, but by traditional financial intermediaries, foremost among which are banks. However, these intermediaries intervene only indirectly, through their own obligations, when funds relating to a transaction pass through their accounts. The paradox is striking: gallery owners, art dealers and auction houses are largely exempt from the AMLA, even though they possess the necessary expertise to identify suspicious behaviour in such a unique market and, above all, are in direct contact with clients. To date, the Swiss art market therefore lacks any preventive measures truly tailored to the money-laundering risks specific to it.
Yet it was the existing framework – and in particular this new regime for advisers – that the Council of States essentially relied on when, on 23 September 2026, it rejected the Jon Pult motion (CN 22.3104), which had been tabled in 2022 and was specifically aimed at bringing the art trade and its participants within the scope of the AMLA.
The majority of speakers in the parliamentary debates appear, in fact, to consider that, with financial intermediaries and advisers already subject to the Act, the key players in the art trade are already covered by the scope of the AMLA; they also cite the low number of reports to the MROS from this sector to justify the lack of need to amend the current rules (BO 2026 EE, 23 September 2026).
This argument, however, appears questionable. In the art market, as has been noted, those involved in the sector are not always regarded as financial intermediaries; supervision is exercised primarily indirectly, notably by the banks involved in the transactions, which may also go a long way towards explaining the ‘low number’ of reports to MROS.
Turning to the new regime for advisers, its practical scope of application has yet to be defined in practice; whilst it might potentially apply where certain transactions on the art market are channelled through non-operational structures, however, as we noted in the first part of our contribution, this is not the only method that can be used to launder money on the art market.
The current framework therefore still leaves a significant « loophole ».
IV. Recent developments in the applicable framework
On 14 October 2026, the Interdepartmental Coordination Group on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (GCBF) published its new National Risk Assessment on money laundering and terrorist financing (NRA 2026).
This report, which devotes a section to the art trade, provides several useful insights, notably by highlighting certain modus operandi used by criminals to launder funds in this sector (NRA 2026, p. 132 ff.). It thus confirms the reality of the identified risk, classifying it as “Medium”, whilst emphasising that although the number of suspicious activity reports directly linked to the art trade remains low (between 46 and 96 reports per year), an upward trend has been observed for some time (NRA 2026, p. 135).
The NRA 2026 also indicates that the existing regulatory framework could be improved, highlighting a high degree of fragmentation, whilst considering that it is “essentially in place” (NRA 2026, p. 137). This report, published just a few weeks after the rejection of the Pult motion, also reveals a certain contradiction: whilst Parliament clearly considers the current framework to be sufficient, the experts convened within the GCBF, for their part, highlight the potential for improving the regulatory framework, whilst also emphasising that the risk is not diminishing – quite the contrary.
V. Conclusion and recommandations
It is clear from this second section that, unlike the enforcement aspect, the preventive aspect of the fight against money laundering in the Swiss art market remains inadequate. Players in the art sector largely fall outside the scope of the AMLA, to which they are subject only in marginal cases. Prevention relies primarily on players in the financial sector. Switzerland is thus going against the trend set by the European Union and the United Kingdom, which have for several years subjected art market participants to anti-money laundering rules. This discrepancy is all the more regrettable given that, in the face of a phenomenon that knows no borders, a level playing field at European level appears essential (Bastian, N 1919 ff.).
The rejection of the Pult motion rules out, for the time being, any formal extension of the AMLA. The debate is not, however, necessarily over. The next mutual evaluation report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a key international body in the fight against money laundering, due in 2027/2028, is likely to be decisive, as Switzerland has already been criticised on this point in 2016.
In the meantime, and in the absence of adequate regulations, it is recommended that players in the art market voluntarily implement anti-money laundering measures in order to limit the associated legal and reputational risks. Such an approach should not, moreover, be viewed as a constraint. On the contrary, a study conducted in Europe has shown that such rules, by enhancing market transparency and buyer confidence, can have a positive effect on sales (Deloitte/ArtTactic, Art & Finance Report 2019, p. 243; see also Deloitte/ArtTactic, Art & Finance Report 2021, pp. 31, 93 and 110; Hufnagel/King, ‘Anti-money laundering regulation and the art market’, Legal Studies, Vol. 40, 2020, p. 131 ff., p. 134; Bastian, N 1922 ff.). Beyond economic interests, it is the very integrity of the art market that is at stake: works of art are meant to be admired, evaluated and even criticised, but not to serve as instruments of crime.
Note: this note does not constitute legal advice and the author accepts no liability for its contents; for an in-depth analysis of this topic, see the author’s doctoral thesis, available via Open Access. The sources cited here are not exhaustive and are provided for reference purposes only.