Swiss F-35A Deal Clouded by Controversy Over Fixed Price

The Swiss government's purchase of 36 F-35A fighter jets from Lockheed Martin has been shrouded in controversy. In June 2021, then-head of the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS), Viola Amherd, announced the deal for 6 billion Swiss francs, stating that this amount would be fixed. However, two recent reports by the Swiss Federal Audit Office and the National Council's Management Committee have challenged this claim.

The F-35A was chosen over other contenders, including Dassault Aviation's Rafale and Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, due to a lower US offer of around 2 billion Swiss francs. The agreement signed in September 2022 covered 6.035 billion Swiss francs, with the US government acting as an intermediary.

The contract falls under the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme, which stipulates that Washington must make neither a profit nor a loss on such transactions. This means that any costs incurred by the Pentagon can be passed on to the foreign customer. However, the reports suggest that the Swiss government had negotiated a clause relating to the fixed price, but this did not correspond to the lump-sum fixed price communicated publicly.

The parliamentary work also addressed the conduct of negotiations by the DDPS and the Swiss Federal Office for Defence Procurement (Armasuisse). The committee found that the arrangement had not made it possible to apply the dual-control principle expected for an acquisition of such political, financial and military importance. The report also criticized the department and Ms Amherd for not monitoring the exchanges closely enough.