SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Lukas Bühlmann, Michael Reinle and Michael Schüepp, MLL Legal
unfair to compare oneself or one’s goods, works or services in an unnecessarily condescending manner with other people’s goods, works or services. Fur - thermore, use of a person’s name, image or voice is considered to be an interference with the personality rights of the person concerned and is therefore usually only permitted with their consent. Since personal data is concerned, the rules of the DPA also apply. 1.7 Self-Regulatory Authorities As mentioned in 1.1 Primary Laws and Regulation and 1.2 Enforcement and Regulatory Authorities , the SFCC is one of the most important self-regulato - ry organisations governing and enforcing advertising rules. As the fees for the procedure with the SFCC are gen - erally zero or rather low (compared to court fees), companies and individuals often file their complaints with the SFCC instead of civil courts. Other industry-specific self-regulation is covered in 10.1 Regulated Products . 1.8 Private Right of Action for Consumers Whether consumers/private citizens have a private right of action depends on the infringed provisions: • for infringement of the trade mark or copyright statutes, only the owners of the respective trade mark rights and copyrights have a private right of action; • for infringement of the privacy laws, the data sub - ject has a private right of action; and • for infringement of the UCA, consumers have a private right of action if their economic interests are threatened or damaged by unfair behaviour (Article 9 (1) UCA). Remedies would be injunctions, deletion requests and damage claims (see 1.2 Enforcement and Regulatory Authorities ). 1.9 Regulatory and Legal Trends Price Comparisons Since 1 January 2025, a previous price may be adver - tised for an unlimited period provided it was previously applied for 30 consecutive days. If this requirement is
not met, the alternative rule continues to apply, limit - ing the duration of advertising to half the time that the earlier price was applied and to a maximum of two months. Green Claims Also from 1 January 2025, Article 3 (1)(x) UCA prohib - its climate-related advertising claims that cannot be substantiated with objective and verifiable evidence. The rule applies broadly to terms such as “sustain - able” or “environmentally friendly” and creates a high evidentiary threshold. AI On 12 February 2025, the Federal Council presented its position on the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI). Switzerland will not adopt a general AI Act com - parable to the EU AI Act but will implement a sec - tor-specific approach. The Council of Europe’s AI Convention will be incorporated into Swiss law, with legislative amendments limited to areas affecting fun - damental rights, such as data protection and trans - parency. The Federal Council announced that a draft bill and implementation plan will be presented by the end of 2026. Tobacco On 20 June 2025, parliament adopted a revision of the Tobacco Products Act (TPA; subject to referendum), introducing stricter rules to protect minors – ie: • bans on online ads unless effective age verification applies; • mandatory age controls for online vendors; and • bans in public places accessible to minors. Platforms The draft bill on large communication platforms, intended to incorporate selected provisions from the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), has again been delayed. Temu In April 2025, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) closed its case after the online plat - form Temu committed to clearer price comparisons and seller information, removal of gamification ele - ments and reduced time-pressure tactics.
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