Price Supervision Act
(PrSA)

This Act ap­plies to prices of goods and ser­vices, in­clud­ing cred­it. Salar­ies and oth­er be­ne­fits from em­ploy­ment as well as the lend­ing activ­it­ies of the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank are ex­cluded.

This Act ap­plies to agree­ments af­fect­ing com­pet­i­tion as defined in the Car­tel Act of 6 Oc­to­ber 1995⁵ and to un­der­tak­ings un­der private and pub­lic law with mar­ket power.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ap­point a com­mis­sion­er for price su­per­vi­sion (the Price Su­per­visor).

² The Price Su­per­visor is sub­or­din­ate to the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, Edu­ca­tion and Re­search⁶. He or she shall be as­signed mem­bers of staff.

¹ The Price Su­per­visor shall mon­it­or price de­vel­op­ments.

² He or she shall pre­vent or elim­in­ate any ab­us­ive in­crease in or main­ten­ance of prices. The mon­it­or­ing of spe­cif­ic prices by oth­er au­thor­it­ies re­mains re­served (Art. 15).

³ He or she shall in­form the pub­lic about his or her activ­it­ies.

¹ Price su­per­vi­sion is car­ried out in co-op­er­a­tion with in­ter­ested groups. In the case of lend­ing rates, the Price Su­per­visor shall in par­tic­u­lar act after de­tailed con­sulta­tion with the SNB and the Swiss Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Su­per­vis­ory Au­thor­ity⁷.⁸

² The Price Su­per­visor shall work with the Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion⁹. He or she shall at­tend their meet­ings in an ad­vis­ory ca­pa­city.

³ The Price Su­per­visor and the Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion shall in­form each oth­er of im­port­ant de­cisions.

⁴ If ques­tions of per­son­al scope (Art. 2) and ef­fect­ive com­pet­i­tion (Art. 12) are to be as­sessed, the Price Su­per­visor or the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity (Art. 15) must con­sult the Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion be­fore tak­ing a de­cision. The Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion may pub­lish its opin­ions.¹⁰

If parties to agree­ments af­fect­ing com­pet­i­tion or un­der­tak­ings with mar­ket power in­tend to in­crease prices, they may sub­mit their plans to the Price Su­per­visor.¹¹ The Price Su­per­visor shall de­clare with­in 30 days wheth­er he or she con­siders the price in­crease to be un­ob­jec­tion­able.

Any per­son who sus­pects that the in­crease in or main­ten­ance of a price is ab­us­ive may re­port this in writ­ing to the Price Su­per­visor.

Based on the re­ports or his or her own ob­ser­va­tions, the Price Su­per­visor shall es­tab­lish wheth­er there are any in­dic­a­tions of an ab­us­ive price in­crease or of ab­us­ive price main­ten­ance.

If the Price Su­per­visor iden­ti­fies ab­use, he or she shall en­deav­our to reach an am­ic­able set­tle­ment with the parties con­cerned; This does not re­quire any spe­cial form.

If no am­ic­able set­tle­ment can be reached, the Price Su­per­visor shall pro­hib­it the in­crease in whole or in part or or­der a price re­duc­tion.

¹ The valid­ity of the am­ic­able set­tle­ment or the de­cision must be lim­ited in time.

² At the re­quest of the per­son or un­der­tak­ing con­cerned, the Price Su­per­visor shall de­clare the set­tle­ment or de­cision in­val­id be­fore the ex­piry of the dead­line if the ac­tu­al cir­cum­stances have changed sig­ni­fic­antly in the mean­time.

¹ Price ab­use with­in the mean­ing of this Act can only oc­cur if the prices in the rel­ev­ant mar­ket are not the res­ult of ef­fect­ive com­pet­i­tion.

² Ef­fect­ive com­pet­i­tion ex­ists in par­tic­u­lar if cus­tom­ers have the op­por­tun­ity to switch to com­par­able of­fers without un­reas­on­able ef­fort.

¹ When ex­amin­ing wheth­er a price has been ab­us­ively in­creased or main­tained, the Price Su­per­visor must take par­tic­u­lar ac­count of the fol­low­ing:

a.

the de­vel­op­ment of prices in com­par­able mar­kets;

b.

the need to make reas­on­able profits;

c.

the de­vel­op­ment of costs;

d.

spe­cial ser­vices provided by the busi­nesses con­cerned;

e.

spe­cial mar­ket con­di­tions.

² When re­view­ing the costs, the Price Su­per­visor may also take ac­count of the ini­tial price.

¹ If the le­gis­lature or the ex­ec­ut­ive of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, a can­ton or a com­mune is re­spons­ible for set­ting or ap­prov­ing a price in­crease re­ques­ted by the parties to a com­pet­i­tion agree­ment or a com­pany with mar­ket power, it shall first con­sult the Price Su­per­visor.¹² The Price Su­per­visor may re­quest that a price should not be in­creased at all or to the ex­tent in­ten­ded or that an ab­us­ively main­tained price be re­duced.

² The au­thor­ity shall cite the Price Su­per­visor’s opin­ion in its de­cision. If it does not fol­low it, it shall give reas­ons for this.

³ When ex­amin­ing wheth­er a price ab­use has oc­curred, the Price Su­per­visor shall take ac­count of any over­rid­ing pub­lic in­terests.

¹ If agreed prices or prices set by a un­der­tak­ing with mar­ket power are already mon­itored on the basis of oth­er pro­vi­sions of fed­er­al law, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall as­sess them and not the Price Su­per­visor.¹³

² The au­thor­ity shall be guided by this Act in­so­far as this is com­pat­ible with the ob­ject­ives of its su­per­vi­sion.

^2bis The au­thor­ity shall in­form the Price Su­per­visor of the price as­sess­ments it car­ries out. The Price Su­per­visor may re­quest that a price in­crease not be made in whole or in part or that an ab­us­ively main­tained price be re­duced.¹⁴

^2ter The au­thor­ity shall cite the Price Su­per­visor’s opin­ion in its de­cision. If it does not fol­low it, it shall give reas­ons for this.¹⁵

³ Pro­ceed­ings, rights of ap­peal and crim­in­al pen­al­ties are gov­erned by the rel­ev­ant fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion.

¹ The Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion may ini­ti­ate in­vest­ig­a­tions in­to agree­ments af­fect­ing com­pet­i­tion or un­der­tak­ings with mar­ket power, even if the Price Su­per­visor has re­duced the price or dis­con­tin­ued the pro­ceed­ings.

² The Price Su­per­visor is re­served the right to re­view the ab­us­ive nature of agreed prices or prices of un­der­tak­ings with mar­ket power.

Parties to agree­ments af­fect­ing com­pet­i­tion, un­der­tak­ings with mar­ket power and third parties in­volved in the mar­ket must provide the Price Su­per­visor with all the in­form­a­tion re­quired and make the ne­ces­sary doc­u­ments avail­able.¹⁷ Third parties are not ob­liged to dis­close man­u­fac­tur­ing or busi­ness secrets.

The Price Su­per­visor may re­quest fed­er­al, can­ton­al and com­mun­al of­fices and su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies as well as busi­ness or­gan­isa­tions to co­oper­ate in his or her in­vest­ig­a­tions and to provide the ne­ces­sary doc­u­ments.

¹ The Price Su­per­visor shall main­tain of­fi­cial secrecy.

² He or she may not dis­close any busi­ness secrets.

Rights of ap­peal are gov­erned by the gen­er­al pro­vi­sions on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of fed­er­al justice.

Or­gan­isa­tions of na­tion­al or re­gion­al im­port­ance that are ded­ic­ated to con­sumer pro­tec­tion in ac­cord­ance with their stat­utes have a right of ap­peal.

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.

does not im­ple­ment an ordered price re­duc­tion;

b.

in­creases a price des­pite that be­ing pro­hib­ited; or

c.

ex­ceeds mu­tu­ally agreed prices,

shall be li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing 100,000 francs.

² An at­tempt is a crim­in­al of­fence.

Any per­son who wil­fully:

a.

fails to ful­fil the duty to provide in­form­a­tion (Art. 17); or

b.

provides in­cor­rect or in­com­plete in­form­a­tion,

shall be li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing 20,000 francs.

¹ The Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law Act of 22 March 1974²⁰ ap­plies to the pro­sec­u­tion and ad­ju­dic­a­tion of of­fences.

² The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, Edu­ca­tion and Re­search is the pro­sec­ut­ing and ad­ju­dic­at­ing ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­ity.

¹ The Price Su­per­visor and the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies (Art. 15) shall en­force this Act.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions. In par­tic­u­lar, it may is­sue pro­vi­sions on the co­ordin­a­tion of the activ­it­ies of the Price Su­per­visor and the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies (Art. 15).²¹

¹ This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the com­mence­ment date.

Com­mence­ment date: 1 Ju­ly 1986²²