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Evaluation of Swisscom's Ownership Strategy
Our report concludes that, at present, there is no sufficiently strong public interest in a federal majority stake in Swisscom—neither to ensure the provision of basic telecommunications services nor to expand a nationwide high-speed broadband network. These services are primarily provided in a competitive market or can be adequately regulated by the federal government through legislation. However, given the reassessment of the security implications of telecommunications and information infrastructure, there may be a public interest in federal government ownership of a stake in Swisscom. Since legislation and commercial contracts can only partially regulate the provision of the necessary services, having ultimate control through ownership in this sensitive sector may be advisable.
However, government activity in competitive markets generally leads to distortions of competition. Even a strict separation of the ownership role from supervisory and regulatory functions cannot fully resolve the fundamental conflict of objectives between the economic interest in effective competition and the fiscal interest in dividend income. The balance between the public interest in a majority stake and competitive neutrality is ultimately a political question that this report cannot definitively answer. With regard to the formulation of strategic objectives, we recommend explicitly mentioning the public interest in Swisscom’s security policy responsibilities.
In addition to a majority stake and a complete sale, we also examined alternative courses of action, such as the establishment of a state-owned network company or the retention of a blocking minority. However, no additional benefits were identified.
The evaluation was conducted in collaboration with Martina Arioli and Lukas Bruhin of Arioli Law.
Michael Funk, Urs Trinkner, Lukas Bruhin, Martina Arioli, Nicolas Oderbolz, Nina Schnyder
To the Federal Council’s press release
