A-08-01 AOA

According to a popular German expression, "Totgesagte leben länger. Despite their oft-heralded demise, retrocessions continue to enrich the civil case law of the Federal Supreme Court. However, practitioners are still waiting for the Federal Supreme Court to take a definitive stance on whether retrocessions in execution-only relationships should be subject to restitution. Unfortunately, these hopes were dashed in the ruling presented here (TF 4A_496/2023 of 27 February 2024): "Damit braucht auf die umstrittene Frage, ob grundsätzlich auch im Execution only-Verhältnis[...]

An asset manager who does not comply with the conservative investment strategy agreed with his client is not in breach of his contractual obligations if the client has validly approved the investments (Federal Court ruling 4A_507/2023 of 29 February 2024). In this judgment, the client consults an asset manager to manage part of his assets. Over the years, the client entered into three different management relationships with the service provider. In the third relationship, which gave rise to the dispute,[...]

In a ruling 1C_543/2023 of 7 March 2024, which is intended for publication, the Federal Supreme Court (FSC) confirms its case law concerning the suspension of mutual assistance and the maintenance of sequestration of funds seized in Switzerland in execution of a request submitted by Russia prior to the aggression in Ukraine. It extended the suspension to a sequestration that had already lasted eight years and ruled out the possibility of invoking Article 2 EIMP. The Federal Criminal Court (FCT)[...]

In a ruling 7B_135/2022, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court details the conditions under which commissions resulting from contracts tainted by an offence of unfair competition may be subject to confiscatory measures (art. 70 and 71 of the Swiss Criminal Code). A Swiss public limited company active in private equity proposed, on behalf of a foreign entity, the purchase of shares in a German company operating in the medical sector. The search for new investors generally began with "cold" telephone calls.[...]