Public Procurement in Switzerland – Tender documents are not always perfect
09.05.2017 17:18
M. Strobel, Attorney The “race to the new fighter jet” for the Swiss Air Force has started. Potential bidder have already hired offices in Berne. Politics is alerted and politicians have risen their fingers and request a professional and in all respects correct tender process. There is no doubt that this will be the case. Recent developments have confirmed that the Swiss authorities have become even more sensitive in that regard. However, nobody is perfect. Even the Swiss authorities...
FIDIC, ORGALIME, ABA99, MF/1, SIA and other General Conditions for the Construction Industry
18.08.2016 09:21
M. Strobel, Attorney As mentioned in the last article there exists a considerable variety of standardized General Conditions for the Construction Industry. On international level the FIDIC conditions are the mostly used and best known such conditions. In Scandinavia the ABA 99 documents are often applied and in the UK the MF/1 conditions. In Switzerland SIA is well known and used in almost all construction projects. These (and other) standardized conditions facilitate the international as well as the national...
Minimum Contract Standards
28.07.2016 08:44
M. Strobel, Attorney In the plant construction industry a lot of standard contracts are available: SIA, ORGLIME, FIDIC, and others. Quite often customers propose to use their own “Special” or “General Conditions” and to apply those standard contracts complementary. This may lead to situations where it gets really difficult (at least for a layman, but not only!) to understand the contractual basis of a deal. Under such circumstances a checklist with some minimum legal standards to be followed may...
Establishing a Company in Switzerland
06.04.2016 09:35
M. Strobel, Attorney Establishing a new company in Switzerland is as such quite easy. However, practical life often looks different. Assuming that the question whether a GmbH (limited liability company) or an AG (stock corporation) or any other possible legal form shall be established has been answered, one of the next and key question is who shall act as the founders / investors. This seems to be an easy question. But when one starts to list the formalities requested if...
Public Procurement Procedure in Switzerland
01.04.2016 09:52
M. Strobel, Attorney In the course of the last few years the Swiss authorities have started to apply the rules and regulations on public procurement in an even more stringent way. Jurisprudence has also become more consistent. Some issues which pop up regularly in the course of such procurement procedures are: “dumping” bids, changes of the bid during the procurement procedure and the prior involvement of the bidder awarded with the contract. The latter topic (prior involvement) is one which...
Matrimonial Property Regime in Switzerland
01.04.2016 07:19
M. Strobel, Attorney Experience shows that a lot of expatriate managers and other foreign employees make mistakes when their marriages end, because they do not know well enough – or not at all - the Swiss matrimonial property regime and also lack knowledge concerning the matrimonial property regime of their home countries. Entering into a private separation agreement i.e. a separation agreement which has not been approved by a court without knowing the basics of such regimes can be highly...
Non-Compete Clauses in Employment Contracts
22.09.2015 13:28
M. Strobel, Lawyer 
An employee may undertake in writing to not engaging in any competing activities with the employer after the expiry of the employment. This may include in particular to refraining from running a competing business for his own benefit or from working for or participating in such business. However, such prohibition of competition is binding only if certain conditions are fulfilled: The employment relationship must allow the employee to...
Legacy Tax in Germany
21.07.2015 11:30
Martin Strobel, Lawyer Why simple if it works complicated, too? The recently adopted new law on legacy or inheritance tax in Germany is the result of a ruling by the German Supreme Court. The privileges provide in the existing legacy tax law for family owned companies according to the judgement of the Court were much too broad and needed to be tightened. The outcome is a complicated law that will be highly...
Driving under the influence (DUI)
30.06.2015 12:46
Stefanie Rohr, MLaw Lawyer Driving under influence (DUI) also known as drunk driving is when a perpetrator drives a motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol or other drugs including those prescribed by physicians, to a level that renders a driver incapable from operating a motor vehicle safely. In Switzerland the legal alcohol limit is 0.5 per mill blood alcohol content (BAC). Above 0.5 per mill a person operating a motor vehicle...
Swiss employment law: Fired on sick leave?
18.05.2015 07:32
by Stefanie Rohr Lawyer The Swiss Code of Obligations (OR) regulates when an employer can fire or lay off an employee. Art. 336c OR states that an employee may not be fired after his probationary period (a) for four weeks during the employees leave due to obligational military service, (b) during sick leave for a period of 30 days in his first year of employment, for 90 days in his...