Journalist charged over reporting that exposed the Vincenz affair

Zurich prosecutors have charged Lukas Hässig after his reporting helped bring the Vincenz affair into public view. The business journalist disclosed the charge in an article published on October 15 in Inside Paradeplatz, the publication where he has reported extensively on Swiss corporate affairs.

The case places Hässig at the intersection of two legal interests: the protection of privacy and the public’s ability to scrutinise powerful financial figures. Prosecutors had dropped the proceedings against him in December 2025. Beat Stocker, a former business partner of Vincenz and a co-defendant in the underlying banking case, appealed that decision and won.

Hässig had challenged the proceedings before the Federal Court, Switzerland’s highest court, but failed to stop the trial. The Zurich Public Prosecutor’s Office has now brought charges, although no hearing date has been announced.

The prosecution follows searches of Hässig’s home and office in June 2025. Stocker alleges that the journalist’s articles infringed his privacy. The charge renews scrutiny of how Swiss authorities handle reporting based on sensitive corporate and personal information, particularly when the reporting concerns a major bank and senior executives.

The allegations at the centre of the Vincenz affair involve millions of francs in alleged profits. Prosecutors allege that Pierin Vincenz and Beat Stocker secretly acquired stakes in certain companies and then arranged for those companies to be purchased by Raiffeisen Bank or the credit card company Aduno.

At the time, Stocker was Aduno’s chief executive and Vincenz chaired its board. Vincenz had also led Raiffeisen, one of Switzerland’s most prominent banking groups. The alleged transactions therefore raised questions about conflicts of interest, undisclosed ownership and the use of corporate positions for personal gain.

The case also includes allegations that private expenses, including visits to cabarets and strip clubs, were recorded as entertainment costs. Both men deny criminal responsibility, according to the procedural context reported in the source material, and the final judgment remains pending before the Zurich Court of Appeal.

The Zurich District Court convicted both men at first instance. It sentenced Vincenz to three years and nine months in prison, while Stocker received a four-year sentence. The appeal court is expected to deliver its verdict on January 11, 2027. Hässig’s reporting preceded the criminal proceedings against the bankers, making the journalist’s own case closely watched by Swiss media organisations.

A privacy complaint has taken the dispute from published articles into criminal court. Stocker’s appeal overturned the Zurich prosecutor’s earlier decision to drop the case against Hässig. The legal argument centres on whether the journalist’s reporting crossed the boundary into unlawful interference with private life.

Swiss journalists routinely work with confidential documents, company records and information about executives. The legal risks rise when reporting includes details that concern both corporate conduct and personal spending. In this case, Stocker says Hässig’s articles infringed his privacy. Prosecutors have now accepted the case for trial after the Federal Court declined to prevent the proceedings.

The June 2025 searches of Hässig’s home and office added a forceful investigative step to the dispute. Searches involving a journalist can affect sources, working files and unpublished material, although the source report does not specify what investigators seized or how the evidence will be used.

The proceedings will test the limits of Swiss protections for investigative reporting in a case with clear public-interest dimensions. They will also require the court to examine the specific content and sourcing of Hässig’s articles, rather than only the broader controversy surrounding Vincenz and Raiffeisen.