Facts
C.S. and H.S. were shareholders of company X. located in Staad/SG. C.S. was the managing director, and H.S. worked part-time primarily in the commercial sector. X. handled the computer-based processing of product orders, delivery of goods, and debt collection for companies based in Costa Rica and Nassau/Bahamas. It provided these two companies with its Swiss post office box address and was involved in the implementation of prize competitions in Germany, Poland, and the former Czechoslovakia.
On June 21, 1995, the District Court of Unterrheintal found C.S. and H.S. guilty of violations of the Federal Act against Unfair Competition (UWG) and the Federal Act on Lotteries and Commercial Bets (LG), and sentenced them to six months' imprisonment, suspended with a probationary period of four years, and a fine of 50,000 Swiss francs. The Cantonal Court of St. Gallen, in its judgment of November 11, 1997, reduced the probationary periods to two years and dismissed the appeals in all other respects.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court dismissed the nullity appeal of C.S. and H.S. It concluded that the advertising and sales methods of the appellants, which were directed exclusively at customers abroad, nevertheless fall under the criminal provisions of the UWG. This results from the principle of territoriality under Art. 3 para. 1 cl. 1 of the Swiss Criminal Code, which also applies to the UWG. Accordingly, the UWG is applicable if the act was committed in Switzerland, regardless of whether the addressees…