48 IFLR/May 2015 www.iflr.com The collapse in 2001 of Switzerland’s national airline Swissair, until then regarded as a symbol of the country’s reliability and efficiency, sparked a debate over the need to amend Swiss insolvency laws. Criticism was raised that the Swiss Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law (DEBL) had proven ineffective in facilitating the restructuring of companies in distress and was not adequate to deal with the insolvencies of large groups of companies.
Licences – whether relating to technologies, trademarks, images, audiovisual materials or software – are increasingly important corporate assets. The insolvency of a licensor or licensee can have diverse implications for the fate of those assets, depending on factors such as place of jurisdiction, applicable law, the insolvency mechanisms available and their effect on such agreements.
What effect does a licensor filing for insolvency have on a licence?
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:
The standard debt enforcement process
Continuing with our focus on the issues surrounding insolvency and restructuring, Lawyer Monthly speaks to Daniel Hayek, a member of the management committee of Prager Dreifuss Ltd. Prager Dreifuss is an integrated law firm in Switzerland with a strong international focus, some 40 lawyers, and offices in Zurich, Berne and Brussels.
The Swiss Federal Assembly has passed the revised Swiss restructuring law in the closing vote of 21 June 2013. The referendum deadline has expired uncalled on 10 October 2013. The primary aim of the partial revision of the Swiss Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Act is to facilitate restructurings.
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-