Suchergebnisse für nicht kotierte Aktien

Bonus als Risiko – Zur Regulierung der variablen Vergütung von Bankorganen

The experience with the Credit Suisse crisis of confidence has once again shown that compensation systems are of considerable importance for the risk management of financial institutions. Inappropriate risks and wrong incentives can endanger the substance and profitability of a bank and thus its stability. This article focuses on the regulation of variable compensation of bank boards and analyzes…

Die Registrierungsvereinbarung – insbesondere bei tokenisierten Forderungsrechten

The registration agreement links a certain right to a token or other informational unit on a distributed ledger. In doing so, the issuer creates a ledger-based security, which is an instrument of public faith equivalent to a bearer or «ordre» security and features scriptural legality. The article examines the function and securities law context of the registration agreement, including…

Informationskonzept im neuen Aktienrecht

The information asymmetry between shareholders and managers calls for the implementation of an efficient information concept within stock corporations. In the course of the Swiss Stock Corporation Reform of 2020, the former information concept was partially revised. This article takes a critical look at the revised provisions and puts them in context.

Neuausrichtung des «Swiss Code of Best Practice for Corporate Governance» auf den Wandel der Zeit

The «Swiss Code of Best Practice for Corporate Governance», which was first published in 2002 and has since been revised several times, has become the most important guideline for good corporate governance in Switzerland and is widely accepted because it shows practical solutions based on expertise and experience. It compensates for its non-binding nature and lack of legal legitimacy, so to speak…

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…

Absage einzelner Traktanden einer GV oder einer GV insgesamt

Mit Schreiben vom 6. Mai 2020 lud der Verwaltungsrat (VR) der A AG (Beklagte, Beschwerdeführerin, nachfolgend: A AG) die Aktionäre zur ordentlichen Generalversammlung (GV) auf den 18. Juni 2020 ein…

Die Praxis des Jahres 2022 im Übernahmerecht

Dieser Beitrag bespricht die Praxis der Übernahmekommission (UEK) des Jahres 2022. Die UEK erliess dabei im Rahmen von 16 Verfahren¹ insgesamt 21 Verfügungen.

Börsenrechtliche Meldepflicht nach Art. 120 FinfraG bei kollektiven Kapitalanlagen

Die Gesellschaft A. (Gesuchstellerin, Beschwerdeführerin 1) mit Sitz in den USA und ihre Tochtergesellschaften sind in der Vermögensverwaltung sowie in der Schaffung und im Vertrieb von kollektiven…

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…

Sicherung von strukturierten Produkten nach Art. 70 Abs. 2 FIDLEG

The Financial Services Act (FinSA) is a cross-sectoral regulation but still contains certain historically grown sector-specific provisions. Pursuant to Art. 70 FinSA, offers of structured products to private clients must fulfill regulatory requirements regarding issuer, offeror and collateralization. Particularly, the collateralization of structured products issued by SPVs pursuant to Art. 70 para…

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…

Klimawandel

Climate litigation against companies has increased significantly in the past couple of years, not only in the United States, but also in Europe. At the same time, regulation with respect to climate change is developing rapidly, such that it may be difficult for companies to identify which laws apply to them and how they should address the legal risks relating to climate change and climate…

Editorial

Die von den Eidgenössischen Räten am 19. Juni 2020 verabschiedete Revision des Aktienrechts tritt auf den 1. Januar 2023 vollständig in Kraft. Im vorliegenden Heft werden verschiedene Kernthemen der…

Digitale Generalversammlungen und Verwaltungsratssitzungen

The 19 June 2020 revision of the provisions on the limited by shares company contains various facilitations for the use of technical means in the conduct of general meetings and board meetings. What are the concrete options available and what are the practical implications of these innovations? What do banks need to consider from a prudential perspective? After an overview of the digitization in…

Protokollierung von GV- und VR-Beschlüssen als Gültigkeitsform

The «new» corporation law provides for some new and overall numerous ways to conduct shareholders’ and board meetings. Irrespective of the way they are conducted there is a duty to minute the meetings. Contrary to the traditional opinion the minutes are a validity requirement. Not minuted shareholders’ and board resolutions are therefore not valid and null and void.

Aktienrechtsrevision und Handelsregister

The biggest change in registration is probably the move away from registration as an anti-proxy transaction by introducing various proxy options. With the revision of stock corporation law, the documentary evidence principle was retained in principle. Pursuant to Art. 937 of the Swiss Code of Obligations, the Commercial Registry Office must verify, both at the time of incorporation and in the…

Eigentümerstrukturen von Schweizer Aktiengesellschaften

The ownership structure of a corporation is in many respects a crucial determinant from a corporate governance perspective. In finance and business economics, a large variety of theoretical and empirical work has focused on corporate ownership structures and their implications. In the legal field, however, the topic has been rather neglected so far. This article provides an empirical study of…

Insichgeschäfte von Mitgliedern des Verwaltungsrates

Die börsenkotierte Z. AG (Beschwerdegegnerin) hält in ihren Statuten fest, dass der Verwaltungsrat aus drei oder mehr Mitgliedern besteht. Dieser kann die Geschäftsführung nach Massgabe des…

Die Praxis des Jahres 2021 im Übernahmerecht

Dieser Beitrag bespricht die Praxis der Übernahmekommission (UEK) des Jahres 2021. Die UEK erliess dabei im Rahmen von 14 Verfahren insgesamt 16 Ver­fügungen.

Editorial

Eppur si muove! – die Aktienrechtsrevision bewegt sich, am 1. Januar 2023 ist es mit dem vollen Inkrafttreten soweit. Dem Schritt in die praktische Anwendung geht bereits vielfältige kritische…

Auskunfts- und Einsichtsrecht des Aktionärs – Durchzogene Bilanz der Aktienrechtsrevision

The revision of the Swiss Code of Obligations (CO) concerning the joint stock corporation – which will come into force on 1 January 2023 – substantially alters the shareholders’ rights to ask for information about the affairs of the company and to inspect its ledgers and files. Compared to the present legal situation, which only entitles a shareholder to obtain information during the course of a…

Aktien als individualisierte Rechte und die dadurch in der Trias Mitgliedschaft –Wertpapier/Wertrecht –Bucheffekte verursachten Probleme

Shares (Aktien) in the sense of memberships (Mitgliedschaften) in corporations are in principle individualized, non-fungible rights. They come into existence as non-certified shares (unverbriefte Aktien). In order to make them more negotiable such non-certified rights are often wrapped into a cover (Hülle). By this wrapping process (Umhüllung) the non-certified shares are transformed into…

Relationship Agreements zwischen Vertragsfreiheit und zwingendem Aktienrecht

Relationship agreements between listed companies and large shareholders have gained in popularity over the past years. Relationship agreements cover such topics as the shareholder’s representation on the board of directors, voting at shareholder meetings, the shareholder’s right to receive information from the company, and exit provisions (e.g., lock-up and standstill undertakings). From the…

Tokenisierung von Aktien unter dem neuen DLT-Gesetz (insb. Art. 973d ff. OR) und CMTA Standard

With the entry into force of the Swiss Federal Act on the Adaptation of the Federal Legislation to Developments in Electronic Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT Act) in 2021, various uncertainties relating to the tokenization of financial instruments have been clarified. In particular, the legal framework of such tokenization, understood as the association between digital tokens and certain…

Le droit bancaire privé suisse 2021 / Das schweizerische Bankprivatrecht 2021

Au moment où nous écrivons ces lignes, la Russie envahit l’Ukraine. L’Union européenne et les États-Unis ont adopté de nouvelles sanctions contre plusieurs centaines de personnalités liées au régime…

Le rôle du représentant indépendant des actionnaires en droit suisse de la société anonyme, notamment à l’aune de la législation COVID et des assemblées générales virtuelles du nouveau droit

The independent proxy emerged in Swiss company law a few years ago through the back door of the Minder initiative (Article 95 Federal Constitution). This constitutional provision was then implemented by the Ordinance against Excessive Remuneration in Listed Companies Limited by Shares (ORAb), which has been in force since 1 January 2014. Its institution has been given a new lease of life with the…

Grüne Finanzprodukte

For environmentally sustainable financial products to be recognized by market participants, sufficient information about their environmental risks and impacts must be available. However, without regulatory measures, there are insufficient incentives for product providers to disclose the relevant information. The market is unable to correct these information deficits itself. The regulatory vacuum…

Nichtfinanzielle Berichterstattung nach dem Gegenvorschlag zur Konzernverantwortungsinitiative und ihre Bedeutung für den Finanzsektor

The financial market and its players play a key role in the pursuit of a sustainable economic system. If capital flows are specifically directed toward sustainable products and services, financial market participants can make a significant contribution to a resource-efficient economy. A key prerequisite for the regulatory control of the achievement of sustainability goals is the reporting of…

Ruhen der Stimmrechte und positive Beschlussfeststellungsklage

Die A. AG (Gesellschaft, Beklagte, Beschwerdeführerin) ist eine Aktiengesellschaft nach Schweizer Recht. Das Aktienkapital beträgt CHF 150 000 und ist eingeteilt in 150 Namenaktien zu je CHF 1000…

Editorial

Am 19. Juni 2020 verabschiedeten die Eidgenössischen Räte die Revision des Aktienrechts. Zu den Kernpunkten dieser «grossen Reform» zählen Flexibilisierungen des Aktienkapitals, Modernisierungen der…

Salärgovernance und neues Aktienrecht

In determining the compensation of directors and top management, the board of directors of public companies is faced with a structural conflict of interest. The aim to mitigate this conflict through an appropriate design of the procedure forms the essence of the say-on-pay rules introduced by the Swiss electorate in a public vote in 2013 and implemented on a transitional basis in the Ordinance…

Die Rolle der FINMA bei Vergütungen in Banken und Versicherungen

Compensation and remuneration schemes in financial institutions always have been, and still are, a hot potato. The past decade has been particularly eventful in terms of both regulation and supervision, not only in Switzerland, but also abroad. Against this backdrop, this article aims to discuss the role of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, FINMA, with regard to compensation in…

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…

Die Praxis des Jahres 2020 im Übernahmerecht

Dieser Beitrag bespricht die Praxis der Übernahmekommission (UEK) des Jahres 2020. Die UEK erliess im Rahmen von 8 Verfahren insgesamt 10 Verfügungen.

Vergütungstransparenz in Schweizer Aktiengesellschaften

Die B. AG ist eine Holdinggesellschaft mit einem Aktienkapital von CHF 600 000, welches in 600 000 Namenaktien mit einem Nennwert von je CHF 1 eingeteilt ist. Die Geschwister A.A., C.A. und D.A. sind…

Editorial

Gesellschaftsrecht lebt von Innovationen und bringt selbst Innovationen hervor. Die Aufhebung der Sachübernahmevorschriften – trotz Herausforderungen in der praktischen Handhabung – war im Zuge der …

Lediglich «Punktuelle Anpassungen und Präzisierungen der Bestimmungen zum bedingten Kapital»? Bedingt zutreffend!

The Swiss corporate law reform has made capital structure alterations more flexible. This also applies, with some exceptions, to the form of capital authorization for the board of directors to issue equity linked finance instruments: conditional capital. Neither the raison d’être nor the fundamental principles of conditional capital have been disputed in the corporate law reform. Nevertheless,…

Kapitalerhöhung, Kapitalherabsetzung, insb. innerhalb des Kapitalbands, und der Erwerb und die Veräusserung eigener Aktien

The corporate law reform was passed by the Swiss Parliament on 19 June 2020. It will most probably enter into force in 2023. Its most innovative feature, the capital band, raises a lot of interesting legal issues, inter alia regarding its relationship with the provisions on the acquisition and disposal of own shares. The following article analyses this relationship and the relationship of capital…

SPACs aus Schweizer Sicht

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have been in use in the US for many decades and in their current form since roughly two decades with almost 1000 SPAC listings over these twenty years. A SPAC is a listed company that aims at acquiring or combining with an operating company to bring that company public (so called De-SPAC). For that purpose the founders and sponsors invest capital to…

Prospektrechtliche Gleichbehandlungspflicht bei Ausnahmen von der Prospektpflicht

In the absence of a duty to publish a prospectus, art. 39 of the Swiss Financial Services Act (FinSA) obliges offerors and issuers to treat investors equally when providing them with material information on a public offer of securities. This provision is applicable in cases in which securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading on a trading platform if the obligation to publish a…

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,…

Selektives opting-up und die öffentliche Angebotspflicht

Die MCH Group AG (die «MCH Group») ist eine Aktiengesellschaft mit Sitz in Basel, deren Aktien an der SIX Swiss Exchange (die «SIX») kotiert sind. Die MCH Group bezweckt in erster Linie den Erwerb, die Veräusserung und die Verwaltung von Beteiligungen und die Finanzierung von in- und ausländischen Unternehmen des Messe- und Kongressbereiches und verwandter Geschäftszweige sowie die Überwachung…

Editorial

Am 19. Juni 2020 haben die Eidgenössischen Räte die Revision des schweizerischen Aktienrechts verabschiedet. Die Referendumsfrist ist am 8. Oktober 2020 unbenützt abgelaufen, sodass mit einer…

Digitalisierung des Aktienrechts – Die Ausgabe von Aktien als Registerwertrechte

Increasing digitisation is changing the society and economy, and therefore also affects the law regulating stock corporations. Wherever possible, physical processes are replaced by digital ones. With the emerging of distributed ledger technology (hereinafter DLT), a tendency towards dematerialization can be observed. DLT, or the technology of distributed electronic registers, is the technology of…

Trois modèles de contrôle des investissements transfrontaliers

The screening of foreign investment has become a growing concern for many countries. In the midst of a trade war between the US and China as well as issues related to state-owned companies’ interference in the EU, it is bound to become a subject of heated debates in Switzerland. As we continue to live through a global pandemic, some countries are seeing themselves lacking or at least vulnerable…

Die Praxis des Jahres 2019 im Übernahmerecht

Im Jahr 2019 erliess die Übernahmekommission (UEK) in 16 Verfahren total 23 Verfügungen. Von diesen Verfahren bezogen sich sechs auf öffentliche Übernahmeangebote. Mit einem Transaktionswert von rund CHF 4,432 Mia. stellte dabei die Übernahme der Schweizer Transport- und Logistikdienstleisterin Pan­alpina Welttransport (Holding) AG durch ihre dänische Konkurrentin DSV A/S das gemessen am…

Good Corporate Governance: Von der Zielsetzung zur Unternehmens­organisation – am Beispiel des neuen Aktienrechts

The authors start out by noting that the term and discussion around corporate governance developed from a technical designation without content to a concept of «good» corporate governance that increasingly prescribes the ways, not the goals of corporate governance. Likewise, the question whether a corporate governance system is good or bad is not measured in light of its efficiency in achieving…

Prüfungsrecht und -pflicht der AG in Bezug auf das Aktieneigentum ihrer Aktionäre, v.a. auch im Zusammenhang mit den neuen Vorschriften des Global Forum-Gesetzes

In the recent past the ownership (title) due diligence in share deals, i.e. the due diligence regarding the seller’s unencumbered ownership in the sold shares, became more and more important in practice, as experience shows that in a high percentage of cases there are se­rious issues in this respect. This leads to the question on the scope of the examination rights and examination obligations of…

Les clauses statutaires relatives au transfert des actions de la société anonyme

This article deals with the admissibility of statutory acquisition clauses with regard to the right of the free transmissibility of shares (Art. 685 ss of the Swiss Code of Obligations, CO) and the prohibition of additional obligations at shareholders’s cost (Art. 680 CO). In order to resolve this issue, a distinction must be made between statutory acquisition clauses relating to the shares of…

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,…