Recent developments in Swiss competition law

I. Introduction

1. 1. Further to the public consultation on the preliminary draft amendment¹ to the Federal Law on Cartels and other Competition Restraints,² the Federal Council adopted a revised draft amendment and an explanatory report (“Mes­sage”/“Bot­schaft”) on 24 May 2023.³ These texts also aimed to implement the proposal made by Olivier Français and were successively approved by the Parliament’s two Chambers.⁴ In addition, the following points should be noted:
   • The facilitated merger control procedure in case of a concentration being assessed by the EU Commission (exemption of notification)⁵ and the intention to introduce the SIEC (significant impediment to effective competition) test in Swiss law were confirmed.⁶
   • Several measures were proposed in order to strengthen the position of the parties to an administrative procedure. In particular, a duty to investigate both incriminating and exonerating facts would be…