In June 2018 the Swiss Federal Parliament passed the Financial Services Act and the Financial Institutions Act, and on 6 November 2019 the Swiss Federal Council published the implementing ordinances thereto. The acts and the related ordinances will become effective on 1 January 2020. Modeled largely after the EU prospectus framework, the new prospectus regime marks a veritable paradigm change to Swiss capital market regulation, introducing a number of novelties for issuers of securities in the Swiss market, such as the requirement for an ex ante approval for most financial instruments, coupled with some important long-awaited explicit exemptions from such requirement and the requirement for a prospectus for secondary public offerings.

By Christian Rehm / René Bösch (Reference: CapLaw-2019-51)