Suchergebnisse für Umfang der Sicherstellung

Bail-in-Bonds

Following the financial crisis of 2007/08, the bail-in has established itself as the preferred resolution strategy for large banks throughout Switzerland and internationally. According to the concept, it is not the bank’s owners or the state that are to finance a resolution but the bank’s creditors. This is to be achieved by converting a certain type of debt called «bail-in-bonds» into equity…

Schiedsklauseln in den Statuten von Schweizer Aktiengesellschaften und GmbH

The Swiss legislator clarified that the articles of associations of Swiss companies limited by shares and limited liability companies may include arbitration clauses. This note first discusses issues such as arbitrability, validity and scope of statutory arbitration clauses, i.e., issues arising in the context of arbitration clauses and arbitration agreements alike. It then discusses an issue…

Das Kapitalband

The revision of the Swiss law on companies limited by shares, which came into force on January 1, 2023, introduced the capital band («Kapitalband»). This new legal institution leads to more flexibility for the companies with regard to equity financing by giving the shareholders the possibility to authorize the board of directors to increase and decrease the share capital without a prior…

Sanierungsausnahme und selektives Opting out/up – ein Vergleich

If a listed company is in financial difficulties and has found a potential restructurer who wishes to acquire a larger shareholding but does not wish to be under an obligation to make an offer to acquire all listed equity securities of the company, under the Swiss takeover law two alternatives stand in the foreground: applying for an exemption from the obligation to make an offer for…

Berücksichtigung von ESG-Präferenzen im Finanzdienstleistungs­geschäft

On 1 January 2023, the Swiss Bankers Association’s «Guidelines for the financial service providers on the integration of ESG-preferences and ESG-risks into investment advice and portfolio management» entered into force. This marks the first binding Swiss (self-)regulation on Sustainable Finance at the point of sale. One of the key amendments includes the financial service providers’ duty to…

Das Supervisory Privilege für Akten aus dem Aufsichtsverhältnis

The Swiss Supervisory Privilege, which was added to FINMASA in 2016, is a new legal institution. It empowers FINMA to protect documents from the supervisory relationship between a supervised entity and itself by prohibiting their disclosure to third-party authorities and other third parties without FINMA’s consent if there are grounds for doing so that are particularly worthy of protection…

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…

Neues Aktienrecht als Inspiration für den Gläubigerschutz bei Umstrukturierungen

What is the adequate level of creditor protection in corporate restructurings? The present article sheds a critical light on the current creditor protection provisions in the Swiss Merger Act and proposes, inspired by provisions of the new Swiss Stock Corporation Act, a partial reform of the Swiss Merger Act.

Kooperationsformen zwischen Banken und Drittanbietern aus vertrags- und datenschutzrechtlicher Perspektive

Open Banking or Open Finance essentially means the exchange of financial data between different financial service providers including third party providers at the request of the customer. From a civil liability and data protection perspective this paper examines the legal relationships between banks, third party providers, platforms and customers on the basis of four possible «model forms of…

Moderne Formen der Generalversammlung im revidierten Aktienrecht 2020

The revision in 2020 of the Swiss law on companies limited by shares (Aktiengesellschaft) as created the legal basis for modernizing the annual general meeting (AGM) of shareholders of limited companies, also making it more flexible. Today’s electronic means of communication have opened up new possibilities for how AGMs can be conducted. Especially in large corporations, but also in smaller…

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…

Die Auswirkungen des Covid-19-Solidarbürgschaftsgesetzes auf das Aktienrecht

In spring 2020, the Swiss Federal Council launched, among other things, the Covid-19 credit programme in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. About 20% of all Swiss corporations have subsequently taken out a Covid-19 loan. Initially, the Covid-19 Joint and Several Surety Ordinance («Covid-19-Solidarbürgschaftsverordnung») served as the legal basis of the credit programme. Later the ordinance was…

Können Investitionskontrollen für gleich lange Spiesse sorgen?

Amidst global protectionist tendencies and in view of major takeovers by foreign state-controlled companies calls for increased public control of foreign investment have been getting louder around the globe. Most recently, the Swiss parliament approved a motion obliging the Swiss government to prepare a draft bill regarding foreign investment screening. Apart from national security concerns,…

Daten-Governance und Cloud Banking im neuen Datenschutzrechtsumfeld

Banking is a data-sensitive business. With the adoption of the new Data Protection Act the data protection level will also be increased in Switzerland, amongst others in the data security context. Banks, often using cloud services for efficiency reasons, will have to adapt their data governance framework in the near future: Data processing and storing must meet the data protection and data…

Das Kapitalband im neuen Aktienrecht

On June 19, 2020, the National Council and the Council of States adopted the revision of the Swiss law on companies limited by shares. This article deals with the capital band («Kapitalband») that introduces the possibility for shareholders to authorize the board of directors to increase and reduce the share capital without previous resolution by the general meeting. In line with an…

Die Pflichten des Verwaltungsrates bei drohender Zahlungsunfähigkeit nach neuem Aktienrecht

On 19 June 2020 the Swiss parliament adopted the final text of the new provisions of the Swiss Code of Obligations relating to the revised law on companies limited by shares. Among other things, the relevant provisions cover situations of financial distress and apply to companies limited by shares as well as to other company forms. Aside of the pre-existing legal provisions governing the capital…

Praktische Problemfelder und Lösungsansätze in Bezug auf die «FinTech»-Bewilligungsvoraussetzungen von Art. 1b BankG

The piece at hand addresses in depth the FinTech license according to art. 1b of the Swiss Banking Act (BA) that is in force since January 1^st 2019. The FinTech license provides for a new category of a regulatory status for FinTech institutions that do not offer typical banking activities, but whose business touches certain elements of banking. It aims to foster innovation in the financial market…

Automatisierte Entscheidungen: Grundfragen aus der Perspektive des Privatrechts

Data protection law addresses the issue that more and more (complex) decisions are taken automatically. A closer look at the regulatory approaches of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Council of Europe’s Convention 108 and the draft Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (draft FADP) leads to two conclusions. On the one hand, the scope of application of these provisions is too…

Automatisierte Entscheidungen: Perspektive Datenschutzrecht und ­öffentliche Verwaltung

In the area of government action, automated individual decisions in the sense of the draft revision of the Swiss Federal Data Protection Act (E-DSG) are fully automated decrees. Art. 19 E-DSG provides, on the one hand, for a labelling obligation for such decrees and, on the other hand, for certain decisions, the person concerned is granted the opportunity, upon request, to state his point of view…

Bestimmung von Vertragskonditionen im Rahmen automatisierter Entscheidungen

Automated decision making has become increasingly popular in the context of contracting. Essential contractual conditions, in particular the price, are automatically determined based on a number of factors, a wealth of data and by the use of algorithms. Automated decision making for contractual terms raises a number of legal issues and questions, in particularly related to data protection, fair…

Die (neuen) Pflichten im Execution-only-Geschäft: Zusammenspiel von FIDLEG und OR

As a part of the new financial markets architecture, the Financial Services Act (FinSA) entered into force on 1 January 2020. It introduces unified rules for offering financial services and…

«Exit» aus der Nachlassstundung nach erfolgreicher Sanierung – ­Erste Erkenntnisse zum neuen Art. 296a SchKG

Under Swiss insolvency laws, companies in financial distress aiming at a restructuring rather than a winding-up can opt for a debt-restructuring moratorium (Nachlassstundung) as an alternative to bankruptcy proceedings. While composition proceedings are significantly less frequent in practice than formal bankruptcy proceedings, they are often used by major companies with numerous employees and a…

Anspruch auf Sicherstellung bei Kapitalherabsetzung und Liquidation

The article analyses the creditor’s right to ask for his/her claim to be secured in the procedures of capital ­decrease and liquidation. The strict and very similar rules in both procedures aim to protect the creditors. The authors conclude that a creditor’s right to ask for security shall be subject to the same requirements in both procedures. In this article, the authors state the following: (i…

Crowdinvesting mittels Initial Coin Offering – Regulierungsaufgaben im -Token-Universum

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are a phenomenon with similar characteristics as the cryptocurrency boom. Projects that typically have no history of producing a product or revenue raise capital by issuing their own tokens to investors. Therefore, the Federal Council adopted in December 2018 a report on the legal framework for blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the financial…

Das FIDLEG-Prospektrecht ante portas – Guter Anlegerschutz?

The new Financial Services Act (FinSA) will introduce Switzerland’s first comprehensive prospectus regime. While conceptually modeled after the European Union’s Prospectus Directive and its recent replacement, the Prospectus Regulation, the new Swiss prospectus regime employs traditional Swiss legislation techniques and, constructively, abstains from specifically regulating every detail. The…