Regulatory

In its efforts to adapt the Swiss legal framework to take into account business activities that rely on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), the Federal Council recently published the draft blanket ordinance in the area of blockchain. The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the most salient features of the proposed provisions, focusing…

On 29 November 2020, the initiative on responsible enterprises failed. The initiative provided, among others, liability of Swiss enterprises for their subsidiaries abroad who have breached human rights or environmental standards. As a result, the parliament’s indirect counterproposal will likely enter into force (subject to a potential popular referendum). The indirect counterproposal provides for (i)…

On 16 November 2020, the Swiss financial markets regulator FINMA published details of the partial revision of circular 2016/7 on video and online identification. The notable changes relate to the use of biometric passport data and a clarification regarding the engagement of specialized third party service providers for remote client identification. The consultation period for…

Climate (as well as other ESG topics) is high up on the agenda since countless years, including for financial institutions, and has now also reached the average investor’s attention and Swiss financial market regulation. In addition to long-established voluntary standards and private initiatives, FINMA plans to revise its circulars on public disclosure for climate-related financial…

On 21 October 2020, the Swiss Federal Council published a message to Parliament (Botschaft) (message-ISA) for a revision of the Insurance Supervision Act (ISA), including a draft of the new provisions (draft-ISA). Among others, the proposed legislation introduces new rules regarding the distribution of insurance products (point of sale), in particular insurance products with investment…

On June 19, 2020, the Swiss Parliament approved the partial revision of the Insurance Contract Act (ICA). The revised ICA will enter into force on 1 January 2022. The following article is intended to provide an overview of some (but not all) of the changes (for the revised ICA see https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/federal-gazette/2020/5661.pdf). References to articles of…

Swiss funds are frequently not investors’ first choice, especially as regards alternative investments for professional investors, where time to market is often crucial. High time and cost pressure means that even Swiss clients often prefer foreign funds. With the L-QIF, Switzerland will have a real alternative designed to strengthen the competitiveness of its fund and…

As part of its overall strategy to repair the immediate economic damage triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU is about to adopt a “Capital Markets Recovery Package”. The aim of the reform is to implement targeted amendments to existing EU capital market rules in order to promote market-based finance as one of the core…

The following article is intended to outline the changes in relation to the general meeting of stock corporations under the revised Code of Obligations. The formal framework of the stock corporation remains unchanged, but the reform brings increased flexibility and administrative simplification in various areas, in particular by allowing the use of electronic means of…