SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Hugh Reeves, Jürg Schneider and David Vasella, Walder Wyss Ltd
2.2 Recent Case Law Concerning recent case law, see the Swiss Trends & Developments chapter in this guide and 1.4 Data Protection Fines in Practice . 2.3 Collective Redress Mechanisms Though some basic collective action schemes do exist (with no immediate possibility for the claimants to move for damages), class actions are not permitted in Switzerland. There is an ongoing discussion to provide for class actions in civil proceedings. Proponents of such class actions received a setback in 2020, with the Swiss government deciding against including class actions in the revision of the Swiss Civil Procedure Code. However, in December 2021, the Federal Council launched a new process towards the introduction of collective redress in the Swiss Civil Procedure Code, to allow for the assertion of claims for compensation and the possibility of collective settlements in a new representative action procedure. However, the National Council’s Legal Affairs Committee came to the conclusion, in July 2023, that meas - ures to prevent misuse of class action instru - ments should be examined further. Debates are currently underway in the Federal Parliament, but the risk of “Americanisation” of the judicial system frightens many members of the National Council’s Legal Affairs Committee, which pro - posed on 18 October 2024 to abstain from going ahead with the project concerning the collective exercise of rights. This goes to show that class actions remain a hotly debated topic, both as a matter of princi - ple and regarding the specificities of such legal instrument, and it is uncertain whether, or in what form, they will make it into the law.
decided on 26 July 2000 by the Commission of the European Communities and was confirmed on 15 January 2024. As a member state of the Council of Europe, Switzerland has ratified Convention ETS 108 and the Additional Protocol of 2001 and imple - mented them into its own law. Convention ETS 108 is the first and, to this day, the only binding international instrument in the field of data pro - tection law. It is part of the case law of the Euro - pean Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), as it is consulted by the Court when interpreting Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This is reflected in Swiss jurisprudence; since Switzerland has incorporated the ECHR into its own law, the ECtHR is considered the highest instance with regard to the protection of human rights. The Federal Council also formally signed Convention 108+ in November 2020. Data protection laws at cantonal level only apply to data processing by the respective cantons or cantonal authorities. In addition to the revisions at the federal level, corresponding revisions of the cantonal data protection laws must also take place. To date, only a proportion have completed the necessary revision of their data protection laws; others are still in the process of doing so. Regarding the relationship between Switzer - land and the UK, the UK government has the power to make its own adequacy regulations in relation to third countries such as Switzerland. At the moment, such UK adequacy regulations include Switzerland. As for the agreement on the mutual recognition of data protection levels between Switzerland and the United States, see 5.5 Recent Developments .
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