Geschäftsherrenhaftung im Konzernverhältnis?
On November 29, 2020, the Corporate Responsibility-Initiative failed in the referendum by a majority of the cantons. The debate on the Corporate Responsibility Initiative and the indirect counter-proposal of the Swiss Parliament focused on the question of the extent to which Swiss companies should be held liable for the activities of the companies they control in the area of human rights and environmental protection. According to the idea of the initiators, the model of principal liability should have served as a conceptual template for a new type of group liability to be enshrined in law. Together with a part of the doctrine, they argued that the liability of principals is basically already applicable de lege lata to a group of companies. This article examines the question of whether the model of principal’s liability can really be applied to affiliated and correspondingly «controlled companies» in a group.
