Administration, Not Confiscation The Nestlé Case and the Price of Belonging to a Camp for Switzerland

The criterion is not conduct; it is the list On September 17, Moscow placed Nestlé’s two Russian companies under temporary external administration, along with Auchan and other French groups—sixteen companies in all. This is not a confiscation, but the mechanism—which has been tested on Danone and Carlsberg—typically leads to a forced sale. This analysis traces the document from which everything stems: Government Order No. 430-r of March 5, 2022, reproduced here as a facsimile with an Italian translation alongside it. It is a list of twenty-two items, originally created as a technical annex to regulations governing the payment of debts to foreign creditors and later becoming the general classification system for counter-sanctions. Switzerland is listed by name, fifth from the bottom, five days after the Federal Council’s decision to adopt the European sanctions—while Italy, Germany, and France are listed by reference under the collective heading “Member States of the European Union.” This difference is not merely formal: the member states are deemed “unfriendly” by virtue of their membership, whereas Switzerland is classified as such based on an individual assessment of its conduct. The article then compares two closely related events—the Russian decree targeting a Swiss company and the inclusion, in December 2025, of Swiss citizen Jacques Baud on the European Union’s lists—and notes that Bern spoke out publicly within twenty-four hours on behalf of its multinational company, but chose to remain discreet regarding its citizen. One instrument of international law remains: the 1990 Swiss-Soviet agreement on investment protection, with its arbitration clause, to which is added—for the German partner’s share—the 1989 German-Soviet treaty. Nestlé has a forum; Baud does not have an equivalent one. The article concludes with a hypothesis: in 1972, Edward Lorenz asked whether the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could trigger a tornado in Texas—not to argue that butterflies cause tornadoes, but because in an unstable system, the chain linking a minor cause to a massive effect is too long to be reconstructed. The decisions that expose Switzerland often have that dimension—a sanction accepted out of inertia, a discreet move preferred over a public stance—and their effect is not a targeted retaliation, but an argument handed to the opposing side. It is the price paid by those who have relinquished one legal status without acquiring another: they no longer control the chain of effects resulting from their own choices.

ITEN