The Swiss government aims at a partial revision of the Swiss Cartel Act. Now that the consultation process is completed, the Federal Council has unveiled its draft legislation. The revision aims at modernizing merger control and strengthening private damage litigation. The draft legislation remarkably also provides for a re-introduction of the effects test for hardcore…
The collapse of Crédit Suisse and its subsequent takeover by UBS has produced far-reaching effects, affecting the global banking landscape. Financial stability considerations and market turmoil surrounding the takeover have been widely discussed in the media. Other perspectives, however, have received relatively little attention. In this blog post, we consider a number of competition law…
2022: The Year of Series of Judgments The year 2022 was an eventful year from a Swiss Competition jurisdictional perspective. Case law on unlawful competition agreements/cartels was at the forefront of the discussion on Swiss competition law. In the following, we take a closer look at the series of judgments of the Swiss Federal Supreme…
On 12 January 2023, the new EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) entered into force. The majority of the FSR will start to apply on 12 July 2023. The FSR constitutes a new investigatory review tool for the European Commission. It will focus on economic behaviour on the internal market by companies who received foreign subsidies…
New Cooperation Agreement On November 1, 2022, Switzerland and Germany signed an administrative agreement on cooperation between their competition authorities (“Agreement”). The Agreement is expected to enter into force in September 2023 at the earliest because the Swiss Federal Assembly still has to approve the Agreement. The ratifying German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate…
The Lugano Convention 2007 is an international treaty negotiated by the EU on behalf of its Member States with Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. It seeks to clarify (inter alia) which courts have jurisdiction in cross-border civil and commercial disputes. The UK ceased to be a Member of the Convention upon Brexit and its attempt to…
Following the revision of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation in the European Union, the Swiss Competition Commission is now also proposing to amend its Vertical Notice and Guidelines. Although the proposed amendments are based on the new EU distribution rules, they still depart from them on key issues, resulting in a “Swiss Finish”. Background…
Switzerland is one of the world’s largest recipients of foreign investments – but does not yet have a general regime for the systematic screening of foreign investments. As mandated by Parliament, the Federal Council, the Swiss government, has now issued a preliminary draft legislation for public consultation proposing to introduce a foreign investment regime in…
2021: Less case law, more legislation While the year 2021 was a rather unspectacular year regarding relevant new case law, the legislative made sure it provided for quite noteworthy developments in competition law nonetheless. The Swiss Competition Commission (“ComCo“) and especially the courts produced relatively few leading decisions in 2021, with still a lot of…
Interim measures are back on the Swiss Competition Commission’s radar, especially in dominance cases. The background of this latest development is the authority’s desire to accelerate its proceedings and ensure the efficacy of competition law. However, the most recent cases show that interim measures are not always suitable for this purpose – especially in dynamic…
