Swiss Civil Procedure Code
(Civil Procedure Code, CPC)

This Code gov­erns the pro­ceed­ings be­fore the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies for:

a.

con­ten­tious civil mat­ters;

b.

court or­ders in non-con­ten­tious mat­ters;

c.

court or­ders in mat­ters of debt en­force­ment and bank­ruptcy law;

d.

ar­bit­ra­tion.

The pro­vi­sions of in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies and of the Fed­er­al Act of 18 Decem­ber 1987³ on Private In­ter­na­tion­al Law (PILA) are re­served.

The or­gan­isa­tion of the courts and the con­cili­ation au­thor­it­ies is in the com­pet­ence of the can­tons, un­less the law provides oth­er­wise.

¹ Can­ton­al law gov­erns the ma­ter­i­al jur­is­dic­tion and func­tion­al jur­is­dic­tion of the courts, un­less the law provides oth­er­wise.

² If the ma­ter­i­al jur­is­dic­tion de­pends on the value in dis­pute, such value is cal­cu­lated ac­cord­ing to this Code.

¹ The can­ton­al law des­ig­nates the court that has jur­is­dic­tion as sole can­ton­al in­stance for:

a.

dis­putes in con­nec­tion with in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty rights, in­clud­ing dis­putes con­cern­ing the nullity, own­er­ship, li­cens­ing, trans­fer and vi­ol­a­tion of such rights;

b.

car­tel law dis­putes;

c.

dis­putes on the use of a busi­ness name;

d.

dis­putes un­der the Un­fair Com­pet­i­tion Act of 19 Decem­ber 1986⁴ if the amount in dis­pute ex­ceeds 30,000 francs or if the Con­fed­er­a­tion ex­er­cises its right to file an ac­tion;

e.⁵

dis­putes un­der the Nuc­le­ar En­ergy Pub­lic Li­ab­il­ity Act of 13 June 2008⁶;

f.

claims against the Con­fed­er­a­tion;

g.⁷

dis­putes re­lat­ing to the in­stig­a­tion and con­duct of a spe­cial in­vest­ig­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 697c–697h^bis of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions (CO)⁸;

h.⁹

dis­putes un­der the Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Act of 23 June 2006¹⁰, the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 2015¹¹ and the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018¹²;

i.¹³

dis­putes un­der the Coat of Arms Pro­tec­tion Act of 21 June 2013¹⁴, the Fed­er­al Act of 25 March 1954¹⁵ on the Pro­tec­tion of the Em­blem and Name of the Red Cross and the Fed­er­al Act of 15 Decem­ber 1961¹⁶ on the Pro­tec­tion of the Names and Em­blems of the United Na­tions Or­gan­iz­a­tion and oth­er In­ter­gov­ern­ment­al Or­gan­isa­tions.

² This court is also com­pet­ent to or­der in­ter­im meas­ures be­fore an ac­tion is pending.

¹ The can­tons may des­ig­nate a spe­cial court that has jur­is­dic­tion as sole can­ton­al in­stance for com­mer­cial dis­putes (Com­mer­cial Court).

² A dis­pute is con­sidered com­mer­cial, if:

a.

it con­cerns the com­mer­cial activ­ity of at least one party;

b.

the de­cision is sub­ject to an ob­jec­tion in civil mat­ters to the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court; and

c.

the parties are re­gistered in the Swiss Com­mer­cial Re­gistry or in an equi­val­ent for­eign re­gistry.

³ If only the de­fend­ant is re­gistered in the Swiss Com­mer­cial Re­gister or in an equi­val­ent for­eign re­gister, but all the oth­er con­di­tions are met, the plaintiff may choose between the Com­mer­cial Court and the or­din­ary court.

⁴ The can­tons may also as­sign to the Com­mer­cial Court:

a.

the dis­putes men­tioned in Art­icle 5 para­graph 1;

b.

the dis­putes re­lat­ing to the law of com­mer­cial com­pan­ies and co­oper­at­ives.

⁵ The Com­mer­cial Court is also com­pet­ent to or­der in­ter­im meas­ures be­fore an ac­tion is pending.

The can­tons may des­ig­nate a court that has jur­is­dic­tion as sole can­ton­al in­stance for dis­putes re­lat­ing to in­sur­ance sup­ple­ment­ary to so­cial health in­sur­ance un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 1994¹⁷ on Health In­sur­ance.

¹ If in a fin­an­cial dis­pute the value in dis­pute is at least CHF 100,000, the plaintiff may, with the con­sent of the de­fend­ant, file its ac­tion dir­ectly be­fore the high­er court.

² This court de­cides as the sole can­ton­al in­stance.

¹ A place of jur­is­dic­tion is man­dat­ory only if the law ex­pressly so provides.

² Parties may not derog­ate from a man­dat­ory place of jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ Un­less this Code provides oth­er­wise, the fol­low­ing court has jur­is­dic­tion:

a.

for ac­tions against a nat­ur­al per­son: the court at the per­son's dom­i­cile;

b.

for ac­tions against leg­al en­tit­ies, pub­lic cor­por­a­tions and in­sti­tu­tions as well as gen­er­al part­ner­ships and lim­ited part­ner­ships: the court at the loc­a­tion of their re­gistered of­fice;

c.

for ac­tions against the Con­fed­er­a­tion: the Su­preme Court of the Can­ton of Bern or the su­preme court of the can­ton where the plaintiff's dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or ha­bitu­al res­id­ence is loc­ated;

d.

for ac­tions against a can­ton: a court in the can­ton's cap­it­al.

² Dom­i­cile is de­term­ined in ac­cord­ance with the Civil Code (CC)¹⁸. Art­icle 24 CC does not ap­ply.

¹ If the de­fend­ant has no dom­i­cile, the court at his or her ha­bitu­al res­id­ence has jur­is­dic­tion.

² A ha­bitu­al res­id­ence is the place where a per­son lives for a cer­tain peri­od of time, even if that peri­od is lim­ited from the out­set.

³ If the de­fend­ant has no ha­bitu­al res­id­ence, the court at his or her last known place of res­id­ence has jur­is­dic­tion.

For ac­tions arising out of the com­mer­cial or pro­fes­sion­al activ­ity of an es­tab­lish­ment or branch, the court at the de­fend­ant's dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice or at the loc­a­tion of the es­tab­lish­ment has jur­is­dic­tion.

Un­less the law provides oth­er­wise, the fol­low­ing court has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion to or­der in­ter­im meas­ures:

a.

the court that has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide the main ac­tion; or

b.

the court at the place where the meas­ure is to be en­forced.

¹ A coun­ter­claim may be filed in the court that has jur­is­dic­tion over the main ac­tion, provided the coun­ter­claim has a fac­tu­al con­nec­tion with the main ac­tion.

² This place of jur­is­dic­tion sub­sists even if the main ac­tion is dis­missed for whatever reas­on.

¹ If an ac­tion is dir­ec­ted against two or more de­fend­ants, the court that has jur­is­dic­tion with re­gard to one de­fend­ant has jur­is­dic­tion with re­gard to all de­fend­ants un­less jur­is­dic­tion is based solely on an agree­ment on jur­is­dic­tion.

² If two or more ac­tions that are fac­tu­al con­nec­ted are raised against one and the same de­fend­ant, each court that has jur­is­dic­tion over any one of the ac­tions has jur­is­dic­tion over all of them.

The court that has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide the main ac­tion also de­cides on the third party ac­tion.

¹ Un­less the law provides oth­er­wise, the parties may agree on which court has jur­is­dic­tion over an ex­ist­ing or fu­ture dis­pute arising from a par­tic­u­lar leg­al re­la­tion­ship. Un­less the agree­ment provides oth­er­wise, the ac­tion may only be brought be­fore agreed court.

² The agree­ment must be in writ­ing or in any oth­er form al­low­ing it to be evid­enced by text.

Un­less the law provides oth­er­wise, the seised court has jur­is­dic­tion if the de­fend­ant enters an ap­pear­ance on the mer­its without ob­ject­ing to the court's jur­is­dic­tion.

Un­less the law provides oth­er­wise, the court or au­thor­ity at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the ap­plic­ant has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over non-con­ten­tious mat­ters.

The court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of either of the parties has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide on:

a.

ac­tions based on an in­va­sion of the per­son­al pri­vacy;

b.

re­quests for a right of reply;

c.

ac­tions for name pro­tec­tion and ac­tions chal­len­ging a name change;

d.¹⁹

ac­tions and re­quests un­der the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Septem­ber 2020²⁰ (FADP).

The court at the last known dom­i­cile of the miss­ing per­son has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over ap­plic­a­tions re­lat­ing to a de­clar­a­tion of death or de­clar­a­tion of pre­sumed death (Art. 34 to 38 CC²¹).

For ac­tions con­cern­ing the modi­fic­a­tion of the civil re­gister, the court of the dis­trict in which the entry to be mod­i­fied was made or should have been made has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ The court at the dom­i­cile of either of the parties has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over ap­plic­a­tions and ac­tions based on mar­it­al law as well as ap­plic­a­tions for in­ter­im meas­ures.

² The court at the dom­i­cile of the debt­or has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over ap­plic­a­tions for sep­ar­a­tion of prop­erty by the su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity in debt en­force­ment and bank­ruptcy mat­ters.

The court at the dom­i­cile of one of the parties has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over ap­plic­a­tions and ac­tions in mat­ters of re­gistered part­ner­ships as well as re­quests for in­ter­im meas­ures.

The court at the dom­i­cile of one of the parties has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over ac­tions to de­clare or con­test a par­ent-child re­la­tion­ship.

The court at the dom­i­cile of either of the parties has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over sep­ar­ate ac­tions claim­ing main­ten­ance brought by chil­dren against their par­ents or for ac­tions against re­l­at­ives with an ob­lig­a­tion to provide as­sist­ance.

The court at the dom­i­cile of either of the parties has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over the claims of the un­mar­ried moth­er.

¹ The court at the last dom­i­cile of the de­ceased has jur­is­dic­tion over ac­tions un­der the law of suc­ces­sion as well as ac­tions for the di­vi­sion of the mar­it­al prop­erty on the death of a spouse or a re­gistered part­ner.

² The au­thor­it­ies at the last dom­i­cile of the de­ceased have man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over meas­ures in con­nec­tion with suc­ces­sion. If death did not oc­cur at the dom­i­cile, the au­thor­it­ies at the place of death shall no­ti­fy the au­thor­it­ies at the place of dom­i­cile and take the ne­ces­sary meas­ures to en­sure the con­ser­va­tion of the as­sets situ­ated at the place of death.

³ In­de­pend­ent ac­tions for the al­loc­a­tion on death of an ag­ri­cul­tur­al en­ter­prise or ag­ri­cul­tur­al land may also be brought be­fore the court at the place where the prop­erty is loc­ated.

¹ The court at the place where a prop­erty is or should be re­cor­ded in the land re­gister has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide on:

a.

ac­tions in rem;

b.

ac­tions against the com­munity of con­domin­i­um own­ers;

c.

ac­tions for the re­gis­tra­tion of stat­utory charges on im­mov­able prop­erty.

² Oth­er ac­tions re­lat­ing to im­mov­able prop­erty rights may also be brought be­fore the court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the de­fend­ant.

³ If an ac­tion con­cerns mul­tiple prop­er­ties or if a prop­erty is re­cor­ded in the land re­gister of sev­er­al dis­tricts, the court where the largest prop­erty or the largest part of the prop­erty is situ­ated has jur­is­dic­tion.

⁴ In non-con­ten­tious mat­ters re­lat­ing to im­mov­able prop­erty rights, the court at the place where the prop­erty is or should be re­cor­ded in the land re­gister has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ For ac­tions re­lat­ing to rights in rem or pos­ses­sion of chat­tels or claims se­cured by charges on chat­tels, the court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the de­fend­ant or at the place where the item is loc­ated has jur­is­dic­tion.

² In non-con­ten­tious mat­ters, the court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the ap­plic­ant or with the court at the place where the item is loc­ated has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion.

The court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the de­fend­ant or at the place where the char­ac­ter­ist­ic per­form­ance must be rendered has jur­is­dic­tion over ac­tions re­lated to con­tracts.

¹ The fol­low­ing court has jur­is­dic­tion in dis­putes con­cern­ing con­sumer con­tracts:

a.

for ac­tions brought by the con­sumer: the court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of one of the parties;

b.

for ac­tions brought by the sup­pli­er: the court at the dom­i­cile of the de­fend­ant.

² Con­sumer con­tracts are con­tracts on sup­plies for or­din­ary con­sump­tion in­ten­ded for the per­son­al use of the con­sumer or his fam­ily and offered by the oth­er party in the course of its pro­fes­sion­al or com­mer­cial activ­ity.

The court at the place where the im­mov­able prop­erty is situ­ated has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide ac­tions based on a con­tract for the ten­ancy or lease of im­mov­able prop­erty.

¹ The court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the de­fend­ant or where the em­ploy­ee nor­mally car­ries out his or her work has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide ac­tions re­lat­ing to em­ploy­ment law.

² If a job ap­plic­ant or an em­ploy­ee brings an ac­tion based on the Re­cruit­ment Act of 6 Oc­to­ber 1989²², the court at the place of the busi­ness es­tab­lish­ment of the re­cruit­ment or hir­ing agent with whom the con­tract was con­cluded also has jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ The fol­low­ing per­sons may not waive the jur­is­dic­tion provided for in Art­icles 32 to 34, wheth­er in by ad­vance agree­ment or by en­ter­ing ap­pear­ance:

a.

the con­sumer;

b.

the ten­ant or less­ee of a res­id­en­tial or busi­ness prop­erty;

c.

the farm­er in case of ag­ri­cul­tur­al farm leases;

d.

the per­son seek­ing em­ploy­ment or the em­ploy­ee.

² The con­clu­sion of an agree­ment on jur­is­dic­tion after the emer­gence of the dis­pute is re­served.

The court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the ag­grieved per­son or the de­fend­ant, or where the act oc­curred or had its ef­fect has jur­is­dic­tion over ac­tions in tort.

The court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the de­fend­ant or at the place where the meas­ures have been ordered has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide ac­tions for dam­ages res­ult­ing from un­jus­ti­fied in­ter­im meas­ures.

¹ The court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the de­fend­ant or at the place of the ac­ci­dent has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide ac­tions res­ult­ing from mo­tor vehicle and bi­cycle ac­ci­dents.

² Ac­tions against the Swiss Na­tion­al Bur­eau of In­sur­ance (Art. 74 of the Road Traffic Act of 19 Decem­ber 1958²³; RTA) or against the Swiss Na­tion­al Guar­an­tee Fund (Art. 76 RTA) may also be brought be­fore the court at the place of any branch of such in­sti­tu­tions.

Art. 38a²⁴ Nuclear damage

¹ In the case of ac­tions arising from nuc­le­ar in­cid­ents, the court in the can­ton where the in­cid­ent took place has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion.

² If there is any un­cer­tainty as to which can­ton this is, the court in the can­ton where the nuc­le­ar in­stall­a­tion of the li­able pro­pri­et­or is loc­ated has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion.

³ If two or more courts have jur­is­dic­tion in ac­cord­ance with these rules, the court in the can­ton that is most closely linked to the in­cid­ent and which is most ser­i­ously af­fected by it has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion.

The com­pet­ence of the crim­in­al court to de­cide in­cid­ent­al civil ac­tions is re­served.

¹ The court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the de­fend­ant or the court at the re­gistered of­fice of the com­pany has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide ac­tions con­cern­ing li­ab­il­ity in com­pany law.

² The court at the last re­gistered of­fice of the de­leted leg­al en­tity has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion over the re­in­state­ment of a de­leted leg­al en­tity in the com­mer­cial re­gister.²⁶

The court at the re­gistered of­fice of one of the in­volved en­tit­ies has jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide ac­tions re­lat­ing to the Mer­gers Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003²⁸.

¹ The court at the re­gistered of­fice of the com­pany has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion to de­clare the can­cel­la­tion of shares.

² The court at the place where the im­mov­able prop­erty is re­cor­ded in the land re­gister has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion to de­clare the can­cel­la­tion of mort­gage in­stru­ments.

³ The court at the dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice of the debt­or has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion to de­clare the can­cel­la­tion of oth­er se­cur­it­ies and in­sur­ance policies.

⁴ The court at the place of pay­ment has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion to is­sue in­junc­tions against pay­ment un­der a bill of ex­change or cheque and to de­clare their can­cel­la­tion.

The place of jur­is­dic­tion for the au­thor­isa­tion to con­vene a cred­it­ors' meet­ing is gov­erned by Art­icle 1165 CO²⁹.

The court at the re­gistered of­fice of the con­cerned li­cence hold­er has man­dat­ory jur­is­dic­tion to de­cide on ac­tions brought by the in­vestors or the rep­res­ent­at­ive of the com­munity of in­vestors.

The place of jur­is­dic­tion for ac­tions un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 11 April 1889³⁰ on Debt En­force­ment and Bank­ruptcy (DEBA) is de­term­ined by this chapter un­less the DEBA provides for a place of jur­is­dic­tion.

¹ Judges and ju­di­cial of­ficers shall re­cuse them­selves if:

a.

they have a per­son­al in­terest in the case;

b.

they have ac­ted in the same case in an­oth­er ca­pa­city, in par­tic­u­lar as mem­ber of an au­thor­ity, leg­al agent, ex­pert wit­ness, wit­ness or me­di­at­or;

c.

they are or were mar­ried to, or live or lived in a re­gistered part­ner­ship or co-habit with a party or his or her rep­res­ent­at­ive or a per­son who has ac­ted in the same case as a mem­ber of the lower court;

d.

they are re­lated to a party by birth or mar­riage in dir­ect line or in col­lat­er­al line up to the third de­gree;

e.

they are re­lated by birth or mar­riage in dir­ect line or in col­lat­er­al line up to the second de­gree to the rep­res­ent­at­ive of a party or a per­son who has ac­ted in the same case as a mem­ber of the lower court;

f.

they may not be im­par­tial for oth­er reas­ons, not­ably due to friend­ship or enmity with a party or his or her rep­res­ent­at­ive.

² In­volve­ment in the fol­low­ing, in par­tic­u­lar, is in it­self no reas­on for re­cus­al:

a.

the de­cision on leg­al aid;

b.

the con­cili­ation pro­ceed­ings;

c.

the set­ting aside of an ob­jec­tion un­der Art­icles 80 to 84 DEBA³¹;

d.

the or­der­ing of in­ter­im meas­ures;

e.

pro­ceed­ings for pro­tec­tion of the mar­it­al uni­on.

The judge or ju­di­cial of­ficer con­cerned shall make a timely dis­clos­ure of any pos­sible reas­on for re­cus­al and shall re­cuse him- or her­self vol­un­tar­ily if he or she con­siders that such reas­on ex­ists.

¹ A party that wishes to chal­lenge a judge or ju­di­cial of­ficer must file the cor­res­pond­ing ap­plic­a­tion as soon as it has be­come aware of the reas­on for re­cus­al. It must show cred­ibly the facts that jus­ti­fy the chal­lenge.

² The judge or ju­di­cial of­ficer con­cerned shall re­spond to the ap­plic­a­tion.

¹ If the reas­on giv­en for re­cus­al is dis­puted, the court shall de­cide.

² The de­cision may be chal­lenged by ob­jec­tion.

¹ Pro­ced­ur­al acts in which a per­son ob­liged to re­cuse him- or her­self has par­ti­cip­ated must be an­nulled and re­peated if a party so re­quests with­in 10 days of be­com­ing aware of the reas­on for re­cus­al.

² If the tak­ing of evid­ence can­not be re­peated, the rel­ev­ant evid­ence may be taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion by the de­cid­ing court.

³ If a reas­on for re­cus­al is de­tec­ted only after the close of the pro­ceed­ings, the pro­vi­sions on re­view ap­ply.

All those who par­ti­cip­ate in pro­ceed­ings must act in good faith.

¹ The parties have the right to be heard.

² They have in par­tic­u­lar the right to con­sult the case files and to ob­tain cop­ies there­of provided this does not con­flict with over­rid­ing pub­lic or private in­terests.

¹ Hear­ings and any or­al passing of judg­ment shall be con­duc­ted in pub­lic. The de­cisions are made ac­cess­ible to the pub­lic.

² Can­ton­al law de­term­ines wheth­er the de­lib­er­a­tions are pub­lic.

³ Pro­ceed­ings may be held com­pletely or par­tially in cam­era when re­quired by pub­lic in­terest or by the le­git­im­ate in­terests of a per­son in­volved.

⁴ Fam­ily law pro­ceed­ings are not con­duc­ted in pub­lic.

¹ The parties must present the court with the facts in sup­port of their case and sub­mit the re­lated evid­ence.

² Stat­utory pro­vi­sions re­lat­ing to the ex-of­fi­cio es­tab­lish­ment of facts and tak­ing of evid­ence are re­served.

If a party's sub­mis­sions are un­clear, con­tra­dict­ory, am­bigu­ous or mani­festly in­com­plete, and the court shall give the party the op­por­tun­ity to cla­ri­fy or com­plete the sub­mis­sion by ask­ing ap­pro­pri­ate ques­tions.

The court ap­plies the law ex-of­fi­cio.

¹ The court may not award a party any­thing more than or dif­fer­ent from what the party has re­ques­ted, nor less than what the op­pos­ing party has ac­know­ledged.

² The stat­utory pro­vi­sions un­der which the court is not bound by the parties' re­quests are re­served.

¹ The court shall con­sider an ac­tion or ap­plic­a­tion provided the pro­ced­ur­al re­quire­ments are sat­is­fied.

² Pro­ced­ur­al re­quire­ments are in par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing:

a.

the plaintiff or ap­plic­ant has a le­git­im­ate in­terest;

b.

the court has sub­ject mat­ter and ter­rit­ori­al jur­is­dic­tion;

c.

the parties have the ca­pa­city to be a party and the ca­pa­city to take leg­al ac­tion;

d.

the case is not the sub­ject of pending pro­ceed­ings else­where;

e.

the case is not already the sub­ject of a leg­ally-bind­ing de­cision;

f.

the ad­vance and se­cur­ity for costs have been paid.

The court shall ex­am­ine ex-of­fi­cio wheth­er the pro­ced­ur­al re­quire­ments are sat­is­fied.

If the parties have con­cluded an ar­bit­ra­tion agree­ment re­lat­ing to an ar­bit­rable dis­pute, the seised court shall de­clines jur­is­dic­tion un­less:

a.

the de­fend­ant has made an ap­pear­ance without re­ser­va­tion;

b.

the court holds that the ar­bit­ra­tion agree­ment is mani­festly in­val­id or un­en­force­able; or

c.

the ar­bit­ral tribunal can­not be con­sti­tuted for reas­ons that are mani­festly at­trib­ut­able to the de­fend­ant in the ar­bit­ra­tion pro­ceed­ings.

¹ A case be­comes pending when an ap­plic­a­tion for con­cili­ation, an ac­tion, an ap­plic­a­tion, or a joint re­quest for di­vorce is filed.

² Con­firm­a­tion of re­ceipt of such sub­mis­sions shall be is­sued to the parties.

¹ If a sub­mis­sion that has been with­drawn or re­jec­ted due to lack of jur­is­dic­tion is filed again with the com­pet­ent con­cili­ation au­thor­ity or court with­in one month of with­draw­al or the de­clar­a­tion of non-ad­miss­ib­il­ity, the date of the first fil­ing is deemed to be the date of pen­dency.

² The same ap­plies if the claim was not filed un­der the prop­er pro­ced­ure.

³ The spe­cial stat­utory dead­lines for fil­ing ac­tions un­der the DEBA³² are re­served.

¹ The pen­dency of an ac­tion has in par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing ef­fects:

a

the sub­ject mat­ter of the dis­pute may not be made pending else­where between the same parties;

b.

the ter­rit­ori­al jur­is­dic­tion of the court is main­tained.

² When com­pli­ance with stat­utory dead­line un­der private law de­pends on the date of the state­ment of claim, of rais­ing an ac­tion or of an­oth­er act ini­ti­at­ing leg­al pro­ceed­ings, the rel­ev­ant mo­ment is that of pen­dency in ac­cord­ance with this Code.

Any per­son who with­draws an ac­tion be­fore the com­pet­ent court may not bring pro­ceed­ings again against the same party on the same sub­ject mat­ter if the court has already served the state­ment of claim on the de­fend­ant and the de­fend­ant does not con­sent to its with­draw­al.

The ca­pa­city to be a party is sub­ject to leg­al ca­pa­city or the qual­i­fic­a­tion as a party by vir­tue of fed­er­al law.

¹ Any per­son who has the ca­pa­city to act has the ca­pa­city to take leg­al ac­tion.

² A per­son without ca­pa­city to act may act through his leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive.

³ Provided a per­son without the ca­pa­city to act has the ca­pa­city to con­sent, he or she may:

a.

in­de­pend­ently ex­er­cise those rights con­ferred by vir­tue of his or her per­son­al­ity;

b.

tem­por­ar­ily take the acts ne­ces­sary in cases of im­min­ent danger.

¹ Any per­son who has ca­pa­city to take leg­al ac­tion may choose to be rep­res­en­ted in pro­ceed­ings.

² The fol­low­ing per­sons are al­lowed to act as pro­fes­sion­al rep­res­ent­at­ives:

a.

in all pro­ceed­ings: law­yers ad­mit­ted to rep­res­ent parties be­fore Swiss courts un­der the Law­yers Act of 23 June 2000³³;

b.

be­fore the con­cili­ation au­thor­it­ies, in fin­an­cial dis­putes un­der the sim­pli­fied pro­ced­ure and in cases un­der the sum­mary pro­ced­ure: li­censed ad­min­is­trat­ors and leg­al agents if provided for by can­ton­al law;

c.

in cases un­der the sum­mary pro­ced­ure in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 251 of this Code: pro­fes­sion­al rep­res­ent­at­ives un­der Art­icle 27 DEBA³⁴;

d.

be­fore the spe­cial courts for ten­ancy mat­ters and for em­ploy­ment mat­ters: pro­fes­sion­ally qual­i­fied rep­res­ent­at­ives if provided for by can­ton­al law.

³ The rep­res­ent­at­ive must prove his or her au­thor­ity by power of at­tor­ney.

⁴ The court may or­der the per­son­al ap­pear­ance of a rep­res­en­ted party.

¹ If a party is mani­festly un­able to ap­pear, the court may in­vite that party to ap­point a rep­res­ent­at­ive. If the party does not com­ply with­in the set dead­line, a rep­res­ent­at­ive shall be ap­poin­ted by the court.

² The court shall no­ti­fy the Adult and Child Pro­tec­tion Au­thor­ity if pro­tect­ive meas­ures are deemed ne­ces­sary.³⁵

¹ If two or more per­sons are in a leg­al re­la­tion­ship that calls for one single de­cision with ef­fect for all of them, they must jointly ap­pear as plaintiffs or be sued as joint de­fend­ants.

² Pro­ced­ur­al meas­ures duly taken by one of the joint parties are like­wise ef­fect­ive for the oth­ers, with the ex­cep­tion of chal­len­ging a de­cision.

¹ Two or more per­sons whose rights and du­ties res­ult from sim­il­ar cir­cum­stances or leg­al grounds may jointly ap­pear as plaintiffs or be sued as joint de­fend­ants.

² Vol­un­tary join­der is ex­cluded if the in­di­vidu­al cases are sub­ject to dif­fer­ent types of pro­ced­ure.

³ Each of the joint parties may pro­ceed in­de­pend­ently from the oth­ers.

The joint parties may ap­point a joint rep­res­ent­at­ive, fail­ing which ser­vice is made to each party in­di­vidu­ally.

¹ Any per­son who claims to have a bet­ter right in the ob­ject of a dis­pute, to the total or par­tial ex­clu­sion of both parties, may bring a claim dir­ectly against both parties in the court in which the dis­pute is pending in first in­stance.

² The court may either sus­pend the pro­ceed­ings un­til the case of the prin­cip­al in­ter­ven­or is fi­nally con­cluded, or join the two cases.

Any per­son who shows a cred­ible leg­al in­terest in hav­ing a pending dis­pute de­cided in fa­vour of one of the parties may in­ter­vene at any time as an ac­cess­ory party and for this pur­pose sub­mit to the court an in­ter­ven­tion ap­plic­a­tion.

¹ The ap­plic­a­tion for in­ter­ven­tion shall in­dic­ate the reas­ons for in­ter­ven­tion and the party in whose fa­vour the in­ter­ven­tion is made.

² The court de­cides on the ap­plic­a­tion after hear­ing the parties. The de­cision may be chal­lenged by way of ob­jec­tion.

¹ The in­ter­ven­or may carry out any pro­ced­ur­al acts in sup­port of the prin­cip­al party, provided they are per­mit­ted at the rel­ev­ant stage of the pro­ceed­ings; he or she may in par­tic­u­lar make use of any of­fens­ive or de­fens­ive meas­ures and also seek ap­pel­late rem­ed­ies.

² The pro­ced­ur­al acts of the in­ter­ven­or shall not be taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion in the pro­ceed­ings if they are con­tra­dict­ory to those of the prin­cip­al party.

A res­ult that is un­fa­vour­able to the prin­cip­al party is ef­fect­ive against the in­ter­ven­or, un­less:

a.

the state of the pro­ceed­ings at the mo­ment of in­ter­ven­tion or the acts or omis­sions of the prin­cip­al party have pre­ven­ted the in­ter­ven­or from mak­ing use of of­fens­ive or de­fens­ive meas­ures; or

b.

the prin­cip­al party has failed, wil­fully or through gross neg­li­gence, to make use of of­fens­ive or de­fens­ive meas­ures of which the in­ter­ven­or was not aware.

¹ A party may no­ti­fy a third party of the dis­pute if, in the event of be­ing un­suc­cess­ful, he or she might take re­course against or be sub­ject to re­course by a third party.

² The no­ti­fied third party may also give no­tice of the dis­pute.

¹ The no­ti­fied third party may:

a.

in­ter­vene in fa­vour of the no­ti­fy­ing prin­cip­al party, without fur­ther con­di­tions; or

b.

pro­ceed in place of the no­ti­fy­ing prin­cip­al party, with the con­sent of the lat­ter.

² If the no­ti­fied third party re­fuses to in­ter­vene or does not an­swer the no­ti­fic­a­tion, the pro­ceed­ings shall con­tin­ue without con­sid­er­ing the third party.

Art­icle 77 ap­plies by ana­logy.

¹ The no­ti­fy­ing party may as­sert the rights that he or she be­lieves he or she will have against the no­ti­fied third party in the event that he or she is un­suc­cess­ful in the court that is deal­ing with the main ac­tion.

² The no­ti­fied third party may not bring a fur­ther third party ac­tion.

³ The third party ac­tion is not ad­miss­ible un­der the sim­pli­fied or sum­mary pro­ced­ures.

¹ The re­quest for the third party ac­tion to be ad­mit­ted must be made with the an­swers or the reply in the main pro­ceed­ings. The no­ti­fy­ing party shall set out the pray­ers to be raised against the third party to­geth­er with a brief state­ment of the grounds.

² The court shall give the op­pos­ing party and the third party the op­por­tun­ity to re­spond.

³ If the third party ac­tion is ad­mit­ted, the court shall de­term­ine the time and ex­tent of the re­lated ex­change of writ­ten sub­mis­sions, sub­ject to Art­icle 125.

⁴ The de­cision to ad­mit the third party ac­tion may be chal­lenged by way of ob­jec­tion.

¹ If the ob­ject in dis­pute is ali­en­ated in the course of the pro­ceed­ings, the ac­quirer may take up the pro­ceed­ings in place of the ali­en­at­ing party.

² The sub­sti­tute party is li­able for the en­tire costs of the pro­ceed­ings. The re­tir­ing party is jointly and sev­er­ally li­able for the costs in­curred un­til the sub­sti­tu­tion.

³ In jus­ti­fied cases, the sub­sti­tut­ing party must, if so re­ques­ted by the op­pos­ing party, provide se­cur­ity to guar­an­tee the en­force­ment of the de­cision.

⁴ In the ab­sence of ali­en­a­tion of the ob­ject in dis­pute, the sub­sti­tu­tion of a party is per­mit­ted only with the con­sent of the op­pos­ing party; spe­cial leg­al pro­vi­sions on the leg­al suc­ces­sion are re­served.

¹ By fil­ing an ac­tion for per­form­ance, the plaintiff de­mands that the de­fend­ant be ordered to do, re­frain from do­ing or tol­er­ate something.

² In an ac­tion for the pay­ment of money, the amount must be spe­cified.

¹ If it is im­possible or un­reas­on­able to quanti­fy the amount of the debt at the start of the pro­ceed­ings, the plaintiff may bring an ac­tion for an un­quan­ti­fied debt. However, the plaintiff must in­dic­ate a min­im­al amount as a pro­vi­sion­al value in dis­pute.

² Once evid­ence is taken or the re­quired in­form­a­tion fur­nished by the de­fend­ant, the plaintiff must quanti­fy the debt claim as soon as he or she is able to do so. The seised court main­tains com­pet­ence even if the value in dis­pute ex­ceeds its ma­ter­i­al jur­is­dic­tion.

If a claim is di­vis­ible, an ac­tion for part of the claim may be brought.

By fil­ing an ac­tion to modi­fy a leg­al re­la­tion­ship, the plaintiff de­mands the cre­ation, modi­fic­a­tion or dis­sol­u­tion of a spe­cif­ic right or leg­al re­la­tion­ship.

By fil­ing an ac­tion for a de­clar­at­ory judg­ment, the plaintiff de­mands that the court es­tab­lish that a right or leg­al re­la­tion­ship ex­ists or does not ex­ist.

¹ As­so­ci­ations and oth­er or­gan­isa­tions of na­tion­al or re­gion­al im­port­ance that are au­thor­ised by their art­icles of as­so­ci­ation to pro­tect the in­terests of a cer­tain group of in­di­vidu­als may bring an ac­tion in their own name for a vi­ol­a­tion of the per­son­al­ity of the mem­bers of such group.

² They may re­quest the court:

a.

to pro­hib­it an im­min­ent vi­ol­a­tion;

b.

to put an end to an on­go­ing vi­ol­a­tion;

c.

to es­tab­lish the un­law­ful char­ac­ter of a vi­ol­a­tion if the lat­ter con­tin­ues to have a dis­turb­ing ef­fect.

³ Spe­cial leg­al pro­vi­sions on group ac­tions are re­served.

The plaintiff may com­bine two or more claims against the same party in one ac­tion, if:

a.

they are with­in the ma­ter­i­al jur­is­dic­tion of the same court; and

b.

they are sub­ject to the same type of pro­ced­ure.

¹ The value in dis­pute is de­term­ined by the pray­ers for re­lief. In­terest, costs of the on­go­ing pro­ceed­ings or a pos­sible pub­lic­a­tion of the de­cision and the value of pos­sible sub­si­di­ary claims are not taken in­to ac­count.

² If the pray­ers for re­lief do not spe­cify a sum of money, the court shall de­term­ine the value in dis­pute if the parties are un­able to reach an agree­ment or if the in­form­a­tion they provide is mani­festly in­cor­rect.

¹ Re­cur­ring us­age or ser­vices have the value of the cap­it­al they rep­res­ent.

² If the dur­a­tion of the re­cur­ring us­age or ser­vices is un­known or in­def­in­ite, the an­nu­al us­age or ser­vices mul­ti­plied by twenty is deemed to be the value of the cap­it­al; in case of a life an­nu­ity, the amount of the cap­it­al cor­res­ponds to the ac­tu­al cash value.

¹ In the event of the vol­un­tary join­der of parties or join­der of ac­tions, the val­ues of the claims are ad­ded to­geth­er in­so­far as they are not mu­tu­ally ex­clus­ive.

² In case of per­missive join­der of parties, the type of pro­ced­ure for each claim is main­tained des­pite the ad­di­tion of their val­ues.

¹ In the case of an ac­tion and coun­ter­claim, the value in dis­pute is de­term­ined by the ac­tion with the high­er value.

² For the pur­pose of de­term­in­ing the costs, the val­ues of the ac­tion and the coun­ter­claim are ad­ded to­geth­er in­so­far as they are not mu­tu­ally ex­clus­ive.

¹ The pro­ced­ur­al costs in­clude:

a.

the court costs;

b.

the party costs.

² The court costs in­clude:

a.

the fee for the con­cili­ation pro­ceed­ings;

b.

the fee for the de­cision (judg­ment fee);

c.

the costs of tak­ing evid­ence;

d.

the costs of trans­la­tion;

e.

the costs of rep­res­ent­a­tion for a child (Art. 299 and 300).

³ The party costs in­clude:

a.

the re­im­burse­ment of ne­ces­sary out­lays;

b.

the costs for pro­fes­sion­al rep­res­ent­a­tion;

c.

in jus­ti­fied cases: reas­on­able com­pens­a­tion for per­son­al ef­forts if a party is not pro­fes­sion­ally rep­res­en­ted.

The can­tons set the tar­iffs for the pro­ced­ur­al costs.

The court shall ad­vise a party without leg­al rep­res­ent­a­tion on the costs to be ex­pec­ted and on leg­al aid.

The court may de­mand that the plaintiff make an ad­vance pay­ment up to the amount of the ex­pec­ted court costs.

¹ At the re­quest of the de­fend­ant, the plaintiff must provide se­cur­ity for party costs:

a.

if he or she has no res­id­ence or re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land;

b.

if he or she ap­pears to be in­solv­ent, not­ably if he or she has been de­clared bank­rupt or is in­volved in on­go­ing com­pos­i­tion pro­ceed­ings or if cer­ti­fic­ates of un­paid debts have been is­sued;

c.

if he or she owes costs from pri­or pro­ceed­ings; or

d.

if for oth­er reas­ons there seems to be a con­sid­er­able risk that the com­pens­a­tion will not be paid.

² In the case of man­dat­ory join­der, se­cur­ity must be provided only if each party ful­fils one of the above men­tioned con­di­tions.

³ No se­cur­ity need be provided:

a.

in sim­pli­fied pro­ceed­ings, with the ex­cep­tion of fin­an­cial dis­putes un­der Art­icle 243 para­graph 1;

b.

in di­vorce pro­ceed­ings;

c.

in sum­mary pro­ceed­ings, with the ex­cep­tion of the pro­ceed­ings in clear cases (Art. 257);

d.³⁶

in pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to a dis­pute un­der the FADP³⁷.

¹ Se­cur­ity may be provided in cash or in the form of a guar­an­tee from a bank with a branch in Switzer­land or from an in­sur­ance com­pany au­thor­ised to op­er­ate in Switzer­land.

² The court may sub­sequently or­der the in­crease, re­duc­tion or re­turn of the se­cur­ity.

¹ The court sets a dead­line for the pro­vi­sion of the ad­vance and the se­cur­ity.

² It may or­der in­ter­im meas­ures be­fore the se­cur­ity is provided.

³ If the ad­vance or se­cur­ity is not provided even with­in a peri­od of grace, the ac­tion or ap­plic­a­tion shall be de­clared in­ad­miss­ible.

¹ Each party shall ad­vance the costs for tak­ing the evid­ence that he or she re­quires.

² If the parties of­fer the same evid­ence, each party shall ad­vance half of the costs.

³ If one party fails to pay an ad­vance, the oth­er party may do so, fail­ing which the evid­ence shall not be taken. Mat­ters in which the court must es­tab­lish the facts ex of­fi­cio are re­served.

De­cisions re­lat­ing to ad­vances of costs and se­cur­ity may be chal­lenged by way of ob­jec­tion.

¹ As a gen­er­al rule, the court de­cides on the pro­ced­ur­al costs in the fi­nal de­cision.

² Where an in­ter­im de­cision is made (Art. 237), the pro­ced­ur­al costs in­curred up to that point may be al­loc­ated.

³ The de­cision on the pro­ced­ur­al costs for in­ter­im meas­ures may be de­ferred un­til the fi­nal de­cision on the mer­its.

⁴ If a case is re­ferred back to a lower court, the high­er court may leave it to the lower court to al­loc­ate the costs of the ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings.

¹ The court costs are de­term­ined and al­loc­ated ex of­fi­cio.

² The court awards party costs ac­cord­ing to the tar­iffs (Art. 96). The parties may sub­mit a state­ment of costs.

¹ The costs are charged to the un­suc­cess­ful party. If an ac­tion is not ad­mit­ted by the court or if it is with­drawn, the plaintiff is deemed to be the un­suc­cess­ful party; in case of ac­cept­ance of the claim it is the de­fend­ant.

² If no party en­tirely is suc­cess­ful, the costs are al­loc­ated in ac­cord­ance with the out­come of the case.

³ If three or more per­sons are par­ti­cip­at­ing in the pro­ceed­ings as prin­cip­al parties or ac­cess­ory parties, the court shall de­term­ine each party's share of the costs. It may hold the parties jointly and sev­er­ally li­able.

¹ The court may di­verge from the gen­er­al prin­ciples of al­loc­a­tion and al­loc­ate the costs at its own dis­cre­tion:

a.

if an ac­tion has been up­held in prin­ciple but not the full amount claimed, and if the amount of the award was de­term­ined at the court's dis­cre­tion or if the claim was dif­fi­cult to quanti­fy;

b.

if a party was caused to lit­ig­ate in good faith;

c.

in fam­ily law pro­ceed­ings;

d.

in pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to a re­gistered part­ner­ship;

e.

if the pro­ceed­ings are dis­missed as ground­less and the law does not provide oth­er­wise;

f.

if there are oth­er ex­traordin­ary cir­cum­stances that would res­ult in an al­loc­a­tion ac­cord­ing to the out­come of the case be­ing in­equit­able.

^1bis In the event of the dis­missal of ac­tions un­der com­pany law for per­form­ance to the com­pany, the court may at its dis­cre­tion ap­por­tion the pro­ced­ur­al costs between the com­pany and the plaintiff.³⁸

² Court costs that are not at­trib­ut­able to any party or third party may be charged to the can­ton if equit­able.

Un­ne­ces­sary costs are charged to the party that caused them.

¹ If a case is settled in court, the costs are charged to the parties ac­cord­ing to the terms of the set­tle­ment.

² The costs are al­loc­ated ac­cord­ing to Art­icles 106–108:

a

if the set­tle­ment does not provide for the al­loc­a­tion of costs; or

b.

if, in terms of the set­tle­ment, the costs are charged solely to a party that has been gran­ted leg­al aid.

The de­cision on costs may be sep­ar­ately chal­lenged by way of ob­jec­tion only.

¹ The court costs are set off against the ad­vances paid by the parties. The bal­ance is col­lec­ted from the per­son li­able to pay.

² The party li­able to pay shall re­im­burse the oth­er party his or her ad­vances and shall pay the oth­er party the party costs awar­ded.

³ The pro­vi­sions on leg­al aid are re­served.

¹ The court may de­fer or, in the event of per­man­ent lack of means, waive the court costs.

² The debt pre­scribes ten years after the close of pro­ceed­ings.

³ The de­fault in­terest is 5 per­cent.

¹ No party costs are awar­ded in con­cili­ation pro­ceed­ings. Pay­ment by the can­ton of leg­al agents un­der the leg­al aid sys­tem is re­served.

² No court costs are charged in dis­putes:

a.

re­lat­ing to the Gender Equal­ity Act of 24 March 1995³⁹;

b.

re­lat­ing to the Dis­ab­il­ity Dis­crim­in­a­tion Act of 13 Decem­ber 2002⁴⁰;

c.

re­lat­ing to the rent­al and lease of res­id­en­tial and busi­ness prop­erty or the lease of ag­ri­cul­tur­al prop­erty;

d.

re­lat­ing to an em­ploy­ment con­tract or the Re­cruit­ment Act of 6 Oc­to­ber 1989⁴¹ up to an amount in dis­pute of 30,000 francs;

e.

re­lat­ing to the Par­ti­cip­a­tion Act of 17 Decem­ber 1993⁴²;

f.

re­lat­ing to in­sur­ance sup­ple­ment­ary to the so­cial health in­sur­ance un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 1994⁴³ on Health In­sur­ance;

g.⁴⁴

un­der the FADP⁴⁵.

In lit­ig­a­tion pro­ceed­ings, no court costs are charged in dis­putes:

a.

re­lat­ing to the Gender Equal­ity Act of 24 March 1995⁴⁶;

b.

re­lat­ing to the Dis­ab­il­ity Dis­crim­in­a­tion Act of 13 Decem­ber 2002⁴⁷;

c.

re­lat­ing to an em­ploy­ment con­tract or the Re­cruit­ment Act of 6 Oc­to­ber 1989⁴⁸ up to an amount in dis­pute of 30,000 francs;

d.

re­lat­ing to the Par­ti­cip­a­tion Act of 17 Decem­ber 1993⁴⁹;

e.

re­lat­ing to in­sur­ance sup­ple­ment­ary to the so­cial health in­sur­ance un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 1994⁵⁰ on Health In­sur­ance;

f.⁵¹

be­cause of vi­ol­ence, threats or har­ass­ment un­der Art­icle 28b CC⁵² or re­lat­ing to elec­tron­ic mon­it­or­ing un­der Art­icle 28c CC;

g.⁵³

un­der the FADP⁵⁴.

¹ Court costs may also be charged in cost-free pro­ceed­ings to a party who pro­ceeds in a vex­a­tious man­ner or in bad faith.

² In the case of lit­ig­a­tion re­lat­ing to Art­icle 114 let­ter f, court costs may also be charged to the un­suc­cess­ful party if an injunction pursuant to Article 28bCC⁵⁵or electronic monitoring pursuant to Article 28cCC is ordered against them.⁵⁶

¹ The can­tons may provide for fur­ther ex­emp­tions from pro­ced­ur­al costs.

² Ex­emp­tions from costs that the can­ton provides for it­self, its com­munes or oth­er cor­por­a­tions un­der pub­lic can­ton­al law also ap­ply to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

A per­son is en­titled to leg­al aid if:

a.

he or she does not have suf­fi­cient fin­an­cial re­sources; and

b.

his or her case does not seem devoid of any chances of suc­cess.

¹ Leg­al aid com­prises:

a.

an ex­emp­tion from the ob­lig­a­tion to pay ad­vances and provide se­cur­ity;

b.

an ex­emp­tion from court costs;

c.

the ap­point­ment by the court of a leg­al agent un­der the leg­al aid sys­tem if this is ne­ces­sary to pro­tect the rights of the party con­cerned, and in par­tic­u­lar if the op­pos­ing party is rep­res­en­ted by a leg­al agent; the leg­al agent un­der the leg­al aid sys­tem may be ap­poin­ted pri­or to the court hear­ing in or­der to pre­pare the pro­ceed­ings.

² Leg­al aid may be gran­ted for all or part of the case.

³ The grant of leg­al aid does not re­lieve the party con­cerned from pay­ing party costs to the op­pos­ing party.

¹ The ap­plic­a­tion for leg­al aid may be made be­fore or after an ac­tion be­comes pending.

² The ap­plic­ant must dis­close his or her fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances in­clud­ing in­come and as­sets and state his or her po­s­i­tion on the mer­its of the case and the evid­ence he or she in­tends to pro­duce. He or she may name a pre­ferred leg­al agent in the ap­plic­a­tion.

³ The court shall de­cide on the ap­plic­a­tion in sum­mary pro­ceed­ings. The op­pos­ing party may be heard, and must be heard if leg­al aid is to cov­er se­cur­ity for party costs.

⁴ In ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, leg­al aid may be gran­ted with ret­ro­spect­ive ef­fect.

⁵ A new ap­plic­a­tion for leg­al aid must be made in ap­pel­late pro­ceed­ings.

⁶ No court costs are charged for pro­ceed­ings re­lat­ing to the grant­ing of leg­al aid, ex­cept in cases of bad faith or vex­a­tious con­duct.

The court shall re­voke leg­al aid if the con­di­tions are no longer ful­filled or if it comes to light that they nev­er were ful­filled.

The de­cision by which leg­al aid is re­fused or re­voked in full or in part may be chal­lenged by way of ob­jec­tion.

¹ If a party with leg­al aid is un­suc­cess­ful, the costs shall be settled as fol­lows:

a.

the leg­al agent un­der the leg­al aid sys­tem shall be ad­equately re­mu­ner­ated by the can­ton;

b.

the court costs shall be charged to the can­ton;

c.

the op­pos­ing party shall have its ad­vances re­fun­ded;

d.

the party with leg­al aid must pay party costs to the op­pos­ing party.

² If the party with leg­al aid is suc­cess­ful, the leg­al agent un­der the leg­al aid sys­tem shall be ad­equately re­mu­ner­ated by the can­ton where com­pens­a­tion from the op­pos­ing party is ir­re­cov­er­able or likely to be ir­re­cov­er­able. By pay­ing the re­mu­ner­a­tion, the can­ton be­comes en­titled to en­force the claim for costs.

¹ A party must re­im­burse the leg­al aid re­ceived as soon as he or she is in a po­s­i­tion to do so.

² The can­ton's claim pre­scribes 10 years after the close of pro­ceed­ings.

¹ The court is the dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings. It is­sues the re­quired pro­ced­ur­al rul­ings to en­able the pro­ceed­ings to be pre­pared and con­duc­ted ef­fi­ciently.

² The role of dir­ect­or of pro­ceed­ings may be del­eg­ated to one of the mem­bers of the court.

³ The court may at any time at­tempt to achieve an agree­ment between the parties.

In or­der to sim­pli­fy the pro­ceed­ings, the court may, in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

lim­it the pro­ceed­ings to in­di­vidu­al is­sues or pray­ers for re­lief;

b.

or­der the sep­ar­a­tion of jointly filed ac­tions;

c.

or­der the join­der of sep­ar­ately filed ac­tions;

d.

sep­ar­ate the coun­ter­claim from the main pro­ceed­ings.

¹ The court may sus­pend pro­ceed­ings if ap­pro­pri­ate. The pro­ceed­ings may be sus­pen­ded in par­tic­u­lar if the de­cision de­pends on the out­come of oth­er pro­ceed­ings.

² Sus­pen­sion may be chal­lenged by way of ob­jec­tion.

¹ If fac­tu­ally con­nec­ted cases are pending be­fore dif­fer­ent courts, the sub­sequently seised court may trans­fer the case to the court seised first if that court agrees to take over.

² The trans­fer may be chal­lenged by way of ob­jec­tion.

¹ Any per­son who vi­ol­ates de­cency in court or dis­rupts the course of the pro­ceed­ings shall be li­able to a rep­rim­and or a dis­cip­lin­ary fine not ex­ceed­ing 1,000 francs. In ad­di­tion, the court may ex­clude the per­son con­cerned from the hear­ing.

² The court may re­quest the as­sist­ance of the po­lice to en­force its or­ders.

³ In the event of bad faith or vex­a­tious con­duct, the parties and their rep­res­ent­at­ives shall be li­able to a dis­cip­lin­ary fine not ex­ceed­ing 2,000 francs, and in the event of a re­pe­ti­tion not ex­ceed­ing 5,000 francs.

⁴ The dis­cip­lin­ary fine may be chal­lenged by way of ob­jec­tion.

The pro­ceed­ings shall be held in the of­fi­cial lan­guage of the can­ton in which the case is heard. Can­tons that re­cog­nise two or more of­fi­cial lan­guages shall reg­u­late their use in the pro­ceed­ings.

¹ Sub­mis­sions must be filed with the court in the form of pa­per doc­u­ments or elec­tron­ic­ally. They must be signed.

² In the case of elec­tron­ic sub­mis­sion, the sub­mis­sion and its en­clos­ures must bear a qual­i­fied elec­tron­ic sig­na­ture in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 2016⁵⁸ on Elec­tron­ic Sig­na­tures. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late:

a.

the format for sub­mis­sions and their at­tach­ments;

b.

the meth­od of trans­mis­sion;

c.

the re­quire­ments for re­quest­ing the sub­mis­sion of doc­u­ments in pa­per form in the event of tech­nic­al prob­lems.

Sub­mis­sions and their at­tach­ments in pa­per form must be filed once for the court and once for each op­pos­ing party, fail­ing which the court may set a peri­od of grace or make the cop­ies at the de­fault­ing party's ex­pense.

¹ The court shall set a dead­line for rec­ti­fy­ing form­al de­fects such as a miss­ing sig­na­ture or miss­ing power of at­tor­ney. In the event of de­fault, the sub­mis­sion is not taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.

² The same ap­plies to sub­mis­sions that are il­legible, im­prop­er, in­com­pre­hens­ible or in­co­her­ent.

³ Quer­ulous or ab­us­ive sub­mis­sions are re­turned to the sender without fur­ther form­al­it­ies.

The sum­mons con­tains:

a.

the name and ad­dress of the summoned party;

b.

the mat­ter in dis­pute and the parties;

c.

the ca­pa­city in which the party is summoned;

d.

the place, date and time of the ap­pear­ance;

e.

the pro­ced­ur­al act to which the party is summoned;

f.

the con­sequences of de­fault;

g.

the date of the sum­mons and the seal of the court.

Un­less the law provides oth­er­wise, the sum­mons must be sent out at least 10 days pri­or to the date of ap­pear­ance.

If there is good reas­on, the court may post­pone the date of an ap­pear­ance. It may do so:

a.

ex of­fi­cio; or

b.

if a re­quest to do so is made be­fore the date.

The court shall serve the per­sons con­cerned in par­tic­u­lar with:

a.

the sum­mons;

b.

rul­ings and de­cisions;

c.

the sub­mis­sions of the op­pos­ing party.

If a party is rep­res­en­ted, ser­vice is made to the rep­res­ent­at­ive.

¹ The sum­mons, rul­ings and de­cisions are served by re­gistered mail or by oth­er means against con­firm­a­tion of re­ceipt.

² Ser­vice is ac­com­plished when the doc­u­ment has been re­ceived by the ad­dress­ee or one of his or her em­ploy­ees or a per­son of at least 16 years of age liv­ing in the same house­hold, un­less the court in­structs that a doc­u­ment must be served per­son­ally on the ad­dress­ee.

³ Ser­vice is also deemed to have been ef­fected:

a.

in the case of a re­gistered let­ter that has not been col­lec­ted: on the sev­enth day after the failed at­tempt to serve it provided the per­son had to ex­pect such ser­vice;

b.

in the case of per­son­al ser­vice if the ad­dress­ee re­fuses to ac­cept ser­vice and if such re­fus­al is re­cor­ded by the bear­er: on the day of re­fus­al.

⁴ Oth­er doc­u­ments may be served by reg­u­lar mail.

¹ With the con­sent of the per­son con­cerned, sum­monses, rul­ings and de­cisions may be served elec­tron­ic­ally. They must bear an elec­tron­ic sig­na­ture in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 18 March 2016⁶⁰ on Elec­tron­ic Sig­na­tures.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates:

a.

the sig­na­ture to be used;

b.

the format for sum­monses, rul­ings and de­cisions and their at­tach­ments;

c.

the meth­od of trans­mis­sion;

d.

the point in time at which the sum­mons, rul­ing or de­cision is deemed to have been served.

The court may in­struct parties with dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice abroad to provide a dom­i­cile for ser­vice in Switzer­land.

¹ Ser­vice shall be ef­fected by no­tice in the of­fi­cial gaz­ette of the can­ton or in the Swiss Of­fi­cial Gaz­ette of Com­merce where:

a.

the where­abouts of the ad­dress­ee are un­known and can­not be as­cer­tained des­pite mak­ing reas­on­able en­quir­ies;

b.

ser­vice is im­possible or would lead to ex­cep­tion­al in­con­veni­ence;

c.

if a party with dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice abroad has not provided a dom­i­cile for ser­vice in Switzer­land des­pite be­ing in­struc­ted to do so by the court.

² Ser­vice is deemed ac­com­plished on the day of pub­lic­a­tion.

¹ Lim­it­a­tion peri­ods triggered by a com­mu­nic­a­tion or the oc­cur­rence of an event start­ing on the fol­low­ing day.

² If a lim­it­a­tion peri­od is meas­ured in months, it ex­pires on the same date of the last month as the date of the month in which the peri­od star­ted to run. In the ab­sence of such a date, the peri­od ex­pires on the last day of the month.

³ If the last day of a lim­it­a­tion peri­od is a Sat­urday, a Sunday or a pub­lic hol­i­day re­cog­nised by fed­er­al or can­ton­al law at the loc­a­tion of the court, the peri­od ex­pires on the fol­low­ing work­ing day.

¹ Sub­mis­sions must be filed no later than the last day of the lim­it­a­tion peri­od, either by fil­ing with the court or by hand­ing over to Swiss Post or a dip­lo­mat­ic mis­sion or con­su­lar of­fice of Switzer­land for for­ward­ing on to the court.

² In case of elec­tron­ic sub­mis­sion, the rel­ev­ant time for com­pli­ance with a dead­line is that at which the re­ceipt is is­sued that con­firms that all the steps have been com­pleted that the party must carry out for trans­mis­sion.⁶¹

³ Pay­ment to the court is made with­in the dead­line if the funds are handed over to Swiss Post in fa­vour of the court or deb­ited from a postal or bank ac­count in Switzer­land no later than on the last day of the lim­it­a­tion peri­od.

¹ Stat­utory lim­it­a­tion peri­ods may not be ex­ten­ded.

² Lim­it­a­tion peri­ods set by the court may be ex­ten­ded for good reas­on if the re­quest to do so is made be­fore the peri­od ex­pires.

¹ Stat­utory lim­it­a­tion peri­ods or peri­ods set by the court shall be sus­pen­ded:

a.

from the sev­enth day be­fore East­er up to and in­clud­ing the sev­enth day after East­er;

b.

from 15 Ju­ly up to and in­clud­ing 15 Au­gust;

c.

from 18 Decem­ber up to and in­clud­ing 2 Janu­ary.

² The sus­pen­sion does not ap­ply:

a.

in con­cili­ation pro­ceed­ings;

b.

in sum­mary pro­ceed­ings.

³ Parties must be made aware of the ex­cep­tions provided in para­graph 2 above.

⁴ The pro­vi­sions of the DEBA⁶² on debt en­force­ment hol­i­days and sus­pen­sion are re­served.

¹ If ser­vice is ef­fected dur­ing sus­pen­sion, the lim­it­a­tion peri­od starts to run on the first day fol­low­ing the end of the sus­pen­sion.

² No hear­ings are held in court dur­ing the sus­pen­sion peri­od, un­less the parties agree oth­er­wise.

¹ A party is in de­fault if he or she fails to ac­com­plish a pro­ced­ur­al act with­in the set lim­it­a­tion peri­od or does not ap­pear when summoned to ap­pear.

² The pro­ceed­ings shall con­tin­ue without the act de­faul­ted on un­less the law provides oth­er­wise.

³ The court shall draw the parties' at­ten­tion to the con­sequences of de­fault.

¹ The court may on ap­plic­a­tion grant a peri­od of grace or sum­mon the parties again for a new ap­pear­ance provided the de­fault­ing party shows cred­ibly that he or she was not re­spons­ible for the de­fault or was re­spons­ible only to a minor ex­tent.

² The ap­plic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted with­in 10 days of the day when the cause of de­fault has ceased to ap­ply.

³ If no­tice of a de­cision has been giv­en to the parties, resti­tu­tion may be re­ques­ted only with­in six months after the de­cision has come in­to force.

The court shall in­vite the op­pos­ing party to com­ment on the ap­plic­a­tion and shall is­sue a fi­nal de­cision.