On October 14 2015 the Federal Council published a revision project for the Private International Law Act regarding the recognition and coordination of foreign bankruptcy proceedings in Switzerland.
A foreign insolvency decree can be recognised in Switzerland, at request of the foreign liquidator or a creditor, only if:
1. Applicable Law
1.1.1 On 1 January 2011 Switzerland faced the dawn of a new era in litigation. Due to its federal state structure, until this date civil procedural law was regulated on a cantonal level with 26 civil procedure codes. Since 1 January 2011, the Swiss Civil Procedure Code (CPC) replaces the cantonal codes.
1.1.2 Interim measures are mainly governed by the CPC. In order to determine whether provisions other than the CPC are (also) applicable to an interim measure, the applicant has to check two issues:
Introduction
The insolvency proceedings for the Swissair companies have yet again proved to be one of the biggest and most important cases in the history of Swiss insolvency law. The Federal Supreme Court recently rendered a groundbreaking decision in the liquidation proceedings for SAirGroup and changed its jurisprudence regarding the legitimacy of an insolvent company's estate to claim for damages incurred by company creditors.
Introduction
Since January 22 2015 the Swiss National Bank has charged a negative interest rate (currently 0.75%) for sight deposit account balances that Swiss banks hold with the Swiss National Bank, provided that the sight deposit account balance exceeds a given exemption threshold.(1)
Drawing on the experiences gained from the Swissair grounding in 2001, many critical voices have been raised that Swiss insolvency law should be revised and should focus more on the restructuring of companies rather than their liquidation. Now, 12 years after the commencement of the Swissair insolvency proceedings and after various discussions and negotiations in the Swiss parliament, the revised Swiss insolvency law finally entered into force as of 1 January 2014.
Several new Swiss laws and amendments have entered into force as of January 1 2014. For firms doing business in Switzerland, changes in executive compensation regulation, in reorganisation proceedings and in respect to redundancy plans are among the most important ones.
The Minder initiative
In Switzerland, the preceding year was char- acterised by animated discussion on executive compensation which resulted in two mile- stone decisions on national constitutional ref-
What happens to a license agreement on insolvency of one of the parties? The answer depends not only on the terms of the license agreement and the law that governs that agreement, but also on the laws of the place where the insolvent party is located.
The debt restructuring proceedings of former national carrier Swissair are still ongoing and keeping the courts busy.