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.

Introduction
Regulation
Foreign bankruptcy decrees

Introduction

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-

Introduction
Facts
Decision
Comment

Introduction

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.

This article tries to provide a brief overview of the problems which directors of a financially impaired company are facing under Swiss law.

The insolvency of Petroplus has increased the few debt moratorium cases by one and reminded us of its importance. Despite a comprehensive revision of the Swiss Debt Collection and Bankruptcy Act in 1997 there has been little change to the fundamental idea of bankruptcy law that both available options, namely bankruptcy and debt moratorium, lead mostly to the same result and that is: liquidation.