SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Yves Klein, Monfrini Bitton Klein
1. Identifying Assets in the Jurisdiction 1.1 Options to Identify Another Party’s Asset Position Switzerland is generally a difficult jurisdiction in which to obtain information about another party’s assets due to its strict privacy rules and culture. Publicly avail - able information is limited and does not include judg - ments. It should also be mentioned that Article 271 of the Swiss Penal Code (the Swiss “blocking statute”), which protects Swiss sovereignty, severely limits the possibility of obtaining evidence in Switzerland in sup - port of foreign proceedings or by foreign officeholders such as liquidators of a foreign insolvency. Public Information Public information is limited to the following two sources: • the cantonal Registers of Commerce; and • the cantonal land registers. Judgments of first instance are generally not public, and only an action based on the Data Protection Act may, in some cases, allow access to a version of the judgment, in which the names of the parties are usu - ally redacted. Judgments of appeal are published with a redaction of the names of the parties (with the exception of a few “famous cases”) on the websites of the Federal Court and the cantonal courts (links available on the Federal Court’s website). Cantonal Registers of Commerce All persons or entities established in Switzerland per - forming a trading, manufacturing or other business activity must be registered with the cantonal Register of Commerce at their headquarters or place of busi - ness. Share corporations, limited liability corporations and co-operative corporations only come into exist - ence when they are registered with the Register of Commerce. Branch offices of Swiss and foreign busi - ness organisations must also be registered at their place of business. The cantonal Register of Commerce contains basic information about these persons or entities, such as the date of creation, the type of activity (corporate objective), the persons empowered to represent them,
the amount and type of registered capital of share corporations, and the identities and addresses of their directors and managers. All changes must be regis - tered. All new entries are published in the Swiss Commercial Gazette and the respective cantonal official gazettes. All the cantonal Registers of Commerce may be searched by the name of the entity through a fed- eral search engine. A list of the cantonal Registers of Commerce is available on the Zefix website. Search by director is not available on the official websites, but is provided through private websites requiring a subscription (such as moneyhouse ). It is possible to order a copy by post or email of the documents provided to the Register of Commerce as documentary evidence to obtain a registration or amend it. It should be noted that it is customary to only file excerpts of general meeting of shareholders’ or board of directors’ minutes, certified by the presi - dent of the board of directors. Consequently, the list of shareholders or directors present or represented is usually not filed with the Register of Commerce. Cantonal land registers Although the legislation applicable to land registers in Switzerland is essentially governed by federal law, there is no central land register for the entire country. Instead, the cantons keep their records in their own land registers. A search engine to identify which land register is competent for a certain locality is available here . Some land registers allow the search of basic informa - tion through their website; others require a contact by email or letter. A person with evidence of a legitimate interest, such as a claim or a judgment to enforce, may require the competent land register to indicate whether a certain person owns a property within its territory. Access to Commercial Accounts Pursuant to Article 957 of the Swiss Code of Obli - gations (SCO), any person or company that has to register with the Register of Commerce must hold commercial accounts. The accounting records and the accounting vouchers, together with the annual
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