Staatsrecht

Welches «Too-big-to-fail»-Regime braucht die Schweiz?

On March 19, 2023, the Swiss Finance Minister together with the Swiss National Bank and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA announced the rescue operation for Credit Suisse, the second largest Swiss banking group. After having lost the confidence of its customers, creditors and investors and unprecedented deposit outflows a rescue operation by involving the state of Switzerland…

Verfügt die FINMA über genügend wirksame und scharfe Instrumente gegen (höchste) Bankmanager?

In March 2023, Crédit Suisse (CS) had to be taken over by UBS. It was the first global systemically important bank to face imminent resolution since the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Unlike UBS in 2008, CS remained well capitalized until the end. But clients had lost confidence in the bank’s management. This led to a bank run and thus to the bank’s demise. The ongoing crisis of specialist and…

Die Governance von PostFinance – Zwischen Grundversorgungsauftrag, Systemrelevanz und Kreditverbot

This article deals with the governance of PostFinance, a financial institute held by the Swiss Post. PostFinance has on one hand a service obligation for basic payment transaction services. On the other hand, PostFinance is banned from the credit and mortgage business and has to operate on a restricted business model. On top, PostFinance is qualified as a systemically important financial…

Kantonalbanken im Spannungsfeld von Political Governance und Corporate Governance

Like the other banks, the cantonal banks are facing the challenges of increasing regulation, digitalisation and the persistently low interest rate environment, and are exposed to the accompanying competitive and margin pressure. They have to virtually reinvent their business models and themselves in order to secure their positions as future-oriented financial service providers in their regions…

Regulierung von künstlicher Intelligenz für FinTech-Anwendungen

New methods of artificial intelligence represent one of the greatest promises and most prospective developments of digitalisation. Artificial intelligence has already enabled numerous innovative applications in the areas of image recognition, medicine, language and mobility, and it is also increasingly being used in the financial market, on which this article focuses. In addition to great…

Intransparentere FINMA-Praxis

The abolishment of the FINMA Bulletin and the FINMA enforcement report render significant parts of financial market supervisory practice inaccessible. A resumption of these series is desirable to enable market participants to gauge FINMA expectations and to check their equal treatment, and the public to oversee the authority’s workings. These goals are widely acknowledged to warrant publication…

Editorial

Die Digitalisierung verändert immer weitere Be­reiche des täglichen Lebens und der Tätigkeiten von Unternehmen und Behörden. Betroffen sind auch Handlungen, die seit jeher von Menschen ausgeführt worden sind, etwa das Fällen von Entscheiden. Dank der grossen Fortschritte in der sog. Artificial Intel­ligence, insb. im Bereich des Machine Learning, der stetig wachsenden Datenmengen und der…

Automatisierte Entscheidungen: Perspektive Grundrechte

Automated decisions affect the legal system in a wide variety of areas. In a state governed by the rule of law, fundamental rights are of great importance; their ­validity can lead to a conflict with «results» produced by algorithms. The article examines five areas (employment relationships, biomedical «environment», moderation of online content, financial markets, procedural guarantees) and,…

Les frais de procédure et d’investigation sous pression

There has been a sharp increase in appeals relating to FINMA’s investigation and litigation costs. This article takes up recent case law and examines in detail all the legal questions that have been submitted to the federal judges over the past twelve months. The current FINMA’s practice of charging procedural costs to individuals and legal entities irrespective of whether or not they are subject…

Generalversammlungen von AG: «Landsgemeinden» oder «Chatrooms»?

Digitalization will cause a fundamental change regarding general meetings of Swiss stock corporations. Currently, Swiss corporate law provides that shareholders must be physically present, or validly represented at a general meeting and may not participate in writing or by electronic means; the «COVID-19 regime», however, allows e.g. «cyber general meetings». The new Swiss law on corporations,…