Federal Act
on Collective Investment Schemes
(Collective Investment Schemes Act, CISA)

This Act aims to pro­tect in­vestors and to en­sure trans­par­ency and the prop­er func­tion­ing of the mar­ket for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes.

¹ This Act gov­erns the fol­low­ing, ir­re­spect­ive of their leg­al status:

a.³

col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes and per­sons who are re­spons­ible for the safe­keep­ing of as­sets held in them;

b.⁴

for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes which are offered in Switzer­land;

c.–e.⁵

...

f.

per­sons who rep­res­ent for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes in Switzer­land.⁶

² The fol­low­ing are not gov­erned by this Act:

a.

in­sti­tu­tions and an­cil­lary in­sti­tu­tions in the oc­cu­pa­tion­al pen­sions sec­tor, in- clud­ing in­vest­ment found­a­tions;

b.

so­cial se­cur­ity in­sti­tu­tions and com­pens­a­tion funds;

c.

pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and in­sti­tu­tions;

d.

op­er­at­ing com­pan­ies which are en­gaged in busi­ness activ­it­ies;

e.

com­pan­ies which by way of a ma­jor­ity of the votes or by any an­oth­er way bring to­geth­er one or more com­pan­ies to form a group un­der single man- age­ment (hold­ing com­pan­ies);

f.

in­vest­ment clubs whose mem­bers are in a po­s­i­tion to man­age their fin­an­cial in­terests them­selves;

g.

as­so­ci­ations and found­a­tions as defined in the Swiss Civil Code⁷;

h.⁸

...

^2bis ...⁹

³ In­vest­ment com­pan­ies in the form of a Swiss com­pany lim­ited by shares are not gov­erned by this Act, provided they are lis­ted on a Swiss ex­change, or provided that:¹⁰

a.¹¹

only share­hold­ers as defined in Art­icle 10 para­graphs 3 and 3^ter are en­titled to par­ti­cip­ate in them; and

b.

their shares are re­gistered.¹²

⁴ ...¹³

¹ Col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes are as­sets raised from in­vestors for the pur­pose of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment, and which are man­aged for the ac­count of such in­vestors. The in­vest­ment re­quire­ments of the in­vestors are met on an equal basis.

² Col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes may be open or closed-ended.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late a min­im­um num­ber of in­vestors in ac­cord­ance with the leg­al status and tar­get group. It may au­thor­ise col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes for a single qual­i­fied in­vestor (single in­vestor fund) in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 10 para­graph 3 in con­junc­tion with Art­icle 4 para­graph 3 let­ters b, e and f of the Fin­an­cial Ser­vices Act of 15 June 2018¹⁵ (FinSA).^{16 17}

⁴ In the case of single in­vestor funds, the fund man­age­ment com­pany and the in- vest­ment com­pany with vari­able cap­it­al (SICAV) may del­eg­ate the in­vest­ment de­cisions to the single in­vestor. FINMA may ex­empt them from the duty to sub­ject them­selves to su­per­vi­sion re­cog­nised un­der Art­icle 31 para­graph 3 and Art­icle 36 para­graph 3, re­spect­ively.¹⁸

⁵ Col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes must have their re­gistered of­fice and head of­fice in Switzer­land.¹⁹

¹ Open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes may be in the form of a con­trac­tu­al fund (Art. 25 et seq.) or SICAV (Art. 36 et seq.).

² With open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes, in­vestors have either a dir­ect or in­dir­ect leg­al en­ti­tle­ment, at the ex­pense of the col­lect­ive as­sets, to re­deem their units at the net as­set value.

³ Each open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme has its own fund reg­u­la­tions. In the case of con­trac­tu­al funds this is the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment con­tract (fund con­tract), and in the case of SICAVs it is the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation and the in­vest­ment reg­u­la­tions.

¹ Closed-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes may be in the form of a lim­ited part­ner­ship for col­lect­ive cap­it­al in­vest­ments (Art. 98 et seq.) or an in­vest­ment com­pany with fixed cap­it­al (SI­CAF, Art. 110 et seq.).

² In the case of closed-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes, in­vestors have neither a dir­ect nor an in­dir­ect leg­al en­ti­tle­ment at the ex­pense of the col­lect­ive as­sets to the re­demp­tion of their units at the net as­set value.

³ Lim­ited part­ner­ships for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment are based on a com­pany agree­ment.

⁴ SI­CAFs are based on art­icles of as­so­ci­ation and is­sue a set of in­vest­ment reg­u­la­tions.

¹ In­vestors are nat­ur­al and leg­al per­sons, as well as gen­er­al and lim­ited part­ner­ships, which hold units in col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes.

² Col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes are open to all in­vestors, ex­cept where this Act, the fund reg­u­la­tions or the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation re­strict in­vestor eli­gib­il­ity to qual­i­fied in­vestors.

³ Qual­i­fied in­vestors with­in the mean­ing of this Act are pro­fes­sion­al cli­ents as defined in Art­icle 4 para­graphs 3–5 or Art­icle 5 para­graphs 1 and 4 FinSA²⁰:²¹

^3bis ...²²

^3ter Qual­i­fied in­vestors also in­clude re­tail cli­ents for whom a fin­an­cial in­ter­me­di­ary in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4 para­graph 3 let­ter a FinSA or a for­eign fin­an­cial in­ter­me­di­ary that is sub­ject to equi­val­ent pruden­tial su­per­vi­sion provides port­fo­lio man­age­ment or in­vest­ment ad­vice in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 let­ter c items 3 and 4 FinSA with­in the scope of a per­man­ent port­fo­lio man­age­ment or in­vest­ment ad­vice re­la­tion­ship, provided they have not de­clared that they do not wish to be treated as such. Such de­clar­a­tion must be made in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text.²³

⁴ ...²⁴

⁵ The FINMA may fully or par­tially ex­empt col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes from cer­tain pro­vi­sions of the fin­an­cial mar­ket acts with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 1 para­graph 1 of the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Su­per­vi­sion Act of 22 June 2007²⁵ (FIN­MASA), provided that they are ex­clus­ively open to­wards qual­i­fied in­vestors and that the pro­tect­ive pur­pose of this Act is not im­paired, spe­cific­ally from the pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing:²⁶

a.²⁷

...

b.²⁸

...

c.

the re­quire­ment to pro­duce a semi-an­nu­al re­port;

d.

the re­quire­ment to provide in­vestors with the right to ter­min­ate their in­vest- ment at any time;

e.

the re­quire­ment to is­sue and re­deem units in cash;

f.

risk di­ver­si­fic­a­tion.

Units are claims against the fund man­age­ment com­pany con­fer­ring en­ti­tle­ment to the as­sets and in­come of the in­vest­ment fund or in­terests in the in­vest­ment com­pany.

¹ The des­ig­na­tion «col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme» must not provide any grounds for con­fu­sion or de­cep­tion, in par­tic­u­lar in re­la­tion to the in­vest­ments.

² Des­ig­na­tions such as «in­vest­ment fund», «in­vest­ment com­pany with vari­able cap­it­al», «SICAV», «lim­ited part­ner­ship for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment», «in­vest­ment com­pany with fixed cap­it­al» and «SI­CAF» may only be used for the rel­ev­ant col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes gov­erned by this Act.²⁹

¹ Any party who es­tab­lishes or op­er­ates a col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme or is re­spons­ible for the safe­keep­ing of the as­sets held in it re­quires au­thor­isa­tion from FINMA.³⁰

² The fol­low­ing must ap­ply for au­thor­isa­tion:

a.³¹

...

b.

SICAVs;

c.

lim­ited part­ner­ships for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment;

d.

SI­CAFs;

e.³²

the cus­todi­an bank;

f. and g.³³ ...

h.

rep­res­ent­at­ives of for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes.

³ Rep­res­ent­at­ives who are already sub­ject to oth­er equi­val­ent of­fi­cial su­per­vi­sion may be gran­ted ex­emp­tion from the duty to ob­tain au­thor­isa­tion by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.³⁴

⁴ ...³⁵

⁵ The per­sons cited in para­graph 2 let­ters b–d may only be entered in the Com­mer­cial Re­gister once au­thor­isa­tion has been gran­ted by FINMA.³⁶

¹ Au­thor­isa­tion is gran­ted if:

a.³⁷

the per­sons un­der Art­icle 13 para­graph 2 and the per­sons re­spons­ible for the ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment provide the guar­an­tee of ir­re­proach­able busi­ness con­duct;

a^bis.³⁸

the per­sons re­spons­ible for the ad­min­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment en­joy a good repu­ta­tion and pos­sess the spe­cial­ist qual­i­fic­a­tions re­quired for the func­tion;

b.

the sig­ni­fic­ant equity hold­ers have a good repu­ta­tion and do not ex­ert their in­flu­ence to the det­ri­ment of prudent and sound busi­ness prac­tice;

c.

com­pli­ance with the du­ties stem­ming from this Act is as­sured by in­tern­al reg­u­la­tions and an ap­pro­pri­ate or­gan­isa­tion­al struc­ture;

d.

suf­fi­cient fin­an­cial guar­an­tees are avail­able;

e.

the ad­di­tion­al au­thor­isa­tion con­di­tions lis­ted in the rel­ev­ant pro­vi­sions of the Act are met.

^1bis In­so­far as the fin­an­cial guar­an­tees are used to meet min­im­al cap­it­al re­quire­ments, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late high­er cap­it­al re­quire­ments than re­quired by the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions³⁹.⁴⁰

^1ter The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late ad­di­tion­al au­thor­isa­tion con­di­tions if this is con­sist­ent with re­cog­nised in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards.⁴¹

² ...⁴²

³ The fol­low­ing are deemed to be sig­ni­fic­ant equity hold­ers, provided they dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly con­trol at least 10 per­cent of the cap­it­al or votes in the per­sons spe­cified in Art­icle 13 para­graph 2 or can ma­ter­i­ally in­flu­ence their busi­ness activ­it­ies in an­oth­er way:

a.

nat­ur­al and leg­al per­sons;

b.

gen­er­al and lim­ited part­ner­ships;

c.

fin­an­cially re­lated parties which meet this cri­terion on a com­bined basis.⁴³

¹ The fol­low­ing doc­u­ments are re­quired for ob­tain­ing the ap­prov­al of FINMA:

a.

for in­vest­ment fund, the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment con­tract (Art. 25);

b.

for SICAVs, the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation and in­vest­ment reg­u­la­tions;

c.

for lim­ited part­ner­ships for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment, the com­pany agree­ment;

d.

SI­CAFs, the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation and in­vest­ment reg­u­la­tions;

e.⁴⁴

the rel­ev­ant doc­u­ments of for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes which are offered to non-qual­i­fied in­vestors.

² If an in­vest­ment fund or SICAV is struc­tured as an open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest- ment scheme with sub­funds (Art. 92 et seq.), each sub­fund or cat­egory of shares re­quires in­di­vidu­al ap­prov­al.

If there is a change in the cir­cum­stances un­der­ly­ing the au­thor­isa­tion or ap­prov­al, FINMA's au­thor­isa­tion or ap­prov­al must be sought pri­or to the con­tinu­ation of activ­ity.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may spe­cify a sim­pli­fied au­thor­isa­tion and ap­prov­al pro­ced­ure pro­cess for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes.

¹ Per­sons who man­age or rep­res­ent col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes or hold the as­sets of these schemes in safe­keep­ing, as well as their agents must ful­fil the fol­low­ing du­ties in par­tic­u­lar:⁴⁸

a.

duty of loy­alty: they act in­de­pend­ently and ex­clus­ively in the in­terests of the in­vestors;

b.

due di­li­gence: they im­ple­ment the or­gan­isa­tion­al meas­ures that are ne­ces­sary for ir­re­proach­able busi­ness con­duct;

c.⁴⁹

duty to provide in­form­a­tion: They shall render ac­count of the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes which they man­age and rep­res­ent and the as­sets of these schemes which they hold in safe­keep­ing, and provide in­form­a­tion on all of the fees and costs in­curred dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly by in­vestors as well as com­pens­a­tion from third parties, par­tic­u­larly com­mis­sions, dis­counts or oth­er fin­an­cial be­ne­fits.

² ...⁵⁰

³ Per­sons who man­age or rep­res­ent col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes or hold their as­sets in safe­keep­ing, as well as their agents, shall take all ne­ces­sary pre­cau­tions to en­sure that all du­ties in re­la­tion to all their busi­ness activ­it­ies are per­formed prop­erly.⁵¹

¹ Per­sons who man­age or rep­res­ent col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes or hold their as­sets in safe­keep­ing, as well as their agents shall pur­sue an in­vest­ment policy that at all times cor­res­ponds with the in­vest­ment char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme as set out in the rel­ev­ant doc­u­ments.⁵²

² In re­spect of the pur­chase and sale of as­sets and rights on their own be­half as well as that of third parties, they are only en­titled to re­ceive the fees spe­cified in the rel­ev­ant doc­u­ments. Com­pens­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 26 FinSA⁵³ must be cred­ited to the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme.⁵⁴

³ As­sets ac­quired for their own ac­count may only be pur­chased at mar­ket price, while any sale of own-ac­count as­sets must also be at mar­ket price.

¹ The mem­ber­ship and cred­it­ors' rights as­so­ci­ated with the in­vest­ments must be ex­er­cised in­de­pend­ently and ex­clus­ively in the in­terests of the in­vestors.

² Art­icle 685d para­graph 2 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁵⁶ does not ap­ply to in­vest­ment funds.

³ If a fund man­age­ment com­pany man­ages sev­er­al in­vest­ment funds, the level of the par­ti­cip­a­tion with re­spect to the per­cent­age lim­it set out in Art­icle 685d para­graph 1 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions is cal­cu­lated in­di­vidu­ally for each in­vest­ment fund.

⁴ Para­graph 3 also ap­plies to each sub­fund of an open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme as defined in Art­icle 92 et seq.

¹ The con­trac­tu­al fund (in­vest­ment fund) is based on a col­lect­ive in­vest­ment agree- ment (fund con­tract) un­der which the fund man­age­ment com­pany com­mits it­self to:

a.

in­volving in­vestors in ac­cord­ance with the num­ber and type of units which they have ac­quired in the in­vest­ment fund;

b.

man­aging the fund's as­sets in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of the fund con­tract at its own dis­cre­tion and for its own ac­count.

² The cus­todi­an bank is a party to the con­tract in ac­cord­ance with the tasks con­ferred on it by the law and by the fund con­tract.

³ The in­vest­ment fund must have the stip­u­lated min­im­um as­sets. The Fed­er­al Coun- cil de­term­ines the level there­of, and the peri­od in which it must be ac­cu­mu­lated.

¹ The fund man­age­ment com­pany draws up the fund con­tract and, with the con­sent of the cus­todi­an bank, sub­mits it to FINMA for ap­prov­al.

² The fund con­tract sets out the rights and du­ties of the in­vestors, the fund man­age- ment com­pany and the cus­todi­an bank.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the min­im­um con­tents.⁵⁸

¹ Amend­ments to the fund con­tract must be sub­mit­ted by the fund man­age­ment com­pany, with the con­sent of the cus­todi­an bank, to FINMA.

² If the fund man­age­ment com­pany amends the fund con­tract, it must pub­lish a sum­mary of the sig­ni­fic­ant amend­ments in ad­vance, in which ref­er­ence is made to the loc­a­tions where the full word­ing of the con­trac­tu­al amend­ments may be ob­tained free of charge.

³ These pub­lic­a­tions must in­form in­vestors of their right to lodge ob­jec­tions with FINMA with­in 30 days of their pub­lic­a­tion. The pro­ced­ure is based on the Fed­er­al Act on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure of 20 Decem­ber 1968⁵⁹. In­vestors must fur­ther- more be made aware that they may re­quest the re­pay­ment of their units in cash, while ob­serving the con­trac­tu­al or reg­u­lat­ory no­tice peri­od.⁶⁰

⁴ FINMA pub­lishes its de­cision in the me­dia of pub­lic­a­tion.

¹ SICAV is a com­pany:

a.

whose cap­it­al and num­ber of shares are not spe­cified in ad­vance;

b.

whose cap­it­al is di­vided in­to com­pany and in­vestor shares;

c.

for whose li­ab­il­it­ies only the com­pany's as­sets are li­able;

d.

whose sole ob­ject is col­lect­ive cap­it­al in­vest­ment.

² A SICAV shall have a min­im­um level of as­sets. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the level and the peri­od with­in which it must be ac­cu­mu­lated.

³ The SICAV may del­eg­ate in­vest­ment de­cisions only to per­sons who hold the au­thor­isa­tion re­quired for this activ­ity. Art­icles 14 and 35 of the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018⁶³ (Fin­IA) ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis.⁶⁴

¹ The form­a­tion of a SICAV is based on the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁶⁵ re­gard­ing the form­a­tion of com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares, with the ex­cep­tion of the pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing con­tri­bu­tions in kind, ac­quis­i­tions in kind and spe­cial priv­ileges.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil spe­cifies the min­im­um in­vest­ment amount for a SICAV on its form­a­tion.⁶⁶

³ ...⁶⁷

¹ The com­pany name must con­tain a de­scrip­tion of the leg­al status or the ab­bre­via- tion there­of (SICAV).

² In all oth­er re­spects, the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁶⁸ re­gard­ing the name of com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares ap­ply.

¹ There must be an ap­pro­pri­ate re­la­tion­ship between the hold­ings of the com­pany share­hold­ers and the total as­sets of the SICAV. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates this re­la­tion­ship.

² In spe­cial cases, FINMA may grant a re­lax­a­tion of the re­quire­ments or may or­der a tight­en­ing there­of.

¹ The com­pany shares are re­gistered.

² The com­pany and in­vestor shares have no nom­in­al value and must be fully paid up in cash.

³ The shares are freely trans­fer­able. The art­icles of as­so­ci­ation may re­strict in­vestor eli­gib­il­ity to qual­i­fied in­vestors if the shares of the SICAV are not lis­ted on an ex­change. If the SICAV with­holds its con­sent to a trans­fer of the shares, Art­icle 82 ap­plies.

⁴ The art­icles of as­so­ci­ation may spe­cify dif­fer­ent cat­egor­ies of shares, to which dif­fer­ent rights are as­signed.

⁵ The is­su­ing of par­ti­cip­a­tion cer­ti­fic­ates, di­vidend right cer­ti­fic­ates and pref­er­ence shares is pro­hib­ited.

¹ The com­pany share­hold­ers con­trib­ute the min­im­um hold­ing ne­ces­sary for the form­a­tion of the SICAV.

² They re­solve the dis­sol­u­tion of the SICAV and its sub­funds in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 96 para­graphs 2 and 3.⁶⁹

³ In all oth­er re­spects, the pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing the rights of the share­hold­ers (Art. 46 et seq.) ap­ply.

⁴ The rights and du­ties of the com­pany share­hold­ers pass to the pur­chaser on the trans­fer of the shares.

¹ Un­less the law and art­icles of as­so­ci­ation provide oth­er­wise, a SICAV may at any time is­sue new shares at the net as­set value and must, if re­ques­ted by a share­hold­er, at any time re­deem is­sued shares at the net as­set value. This re­quires neither an amend­ment to the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation nor an entry in the Com­mer­cial Re­gister.

² A SICAV may not hold treas­ury shares, wheth­er dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly.

³ The share­hold­ers have no en­ti­tle­ment to the por­tion of newly is­sued shares cor­res­pond­ing to their pre­vi­ous hold­ing. In the case of real es­tate funds, this is sub­ject to Art­icle 66 para­graph 1.

⁴ In all oth­er re­spects, the is­sue and re­demp­tion of shares is con­duc­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 78–82.

¹ The art­icles of as­so­ci­ation must con­tain pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing:

a.

the com­pany name and its re­gistered of­fice;

b.

the ob­jects;

c.

the min­im­um in­vest­ment amount;

d.

the con­ven­ing of gen­er­al meet­ings;

e.

the ex­ec­ut­ive and gov­ern­ing bod­ies;

f.

the me­dia of pub­lic­a­tion.

² To be ef­fect­ive, the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation must in­clude pro­vi­sions on the fol­low­ing:

a.

the term;

b.

the re­stric­tion of share­hold­er eli­gib­il­ity to qual­i­fied in­vestors and as­so­ci­ated lim­it­a­tion of the trans­fer­ab­il­ity of shares (Art. 40, Para. 3);

c.

the cat­egor­ies of shares and rights as­so­ci­ated there­with;

d.

the del­eg­a­tion of man­age­ment and rep­res­ent­a­tion, and the at­tend­ant pro­ced­ur­al de­tails (Art. 51);

e.

the passing of res­ol­u­tions by means of cor­res­pond­ence.

A SICAV shall pro­duce a set of in­vest­ment reg­u­la­tions. Its con­tents are based on the pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing the fund con­tract, un­less the law and art­icles of as­so­ci­ation provide oth­er­wise.

¹ The SICAV must ap­point a cus­todi­an bank in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 72–74.

²FINMA may grant ex­emp­tions from this duty if jus­ti­fied, provided:

a.

the SICAV is ex­clus­ively open to qual­i­fied in­vestors;

b.

one or more in­sti­tu­tions which are sub­ject to equi­val­ent su­per­vi­sion ex­ecute the trans­ac­tions re­lated to set­tle­ment and spe­cial­ise in such trans­ac­tions (prime broker); and

c.

it is en­sured that the prime broker or the for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity re­spons­ible for the prime broker will provide FINMA with all the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments that it re­quires to carry out its du­ties.

The pro­vi­sions on pub­lic takeover of­fers (Arts. 125 to 141 of the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 2015⁷²) do not ap­ply to SICAVs.

¹ Any per­son re­cog­nised as a share­hold­er by the SICAV may ex­er­cise mem­ber­ship rights.

² The share­hold­ers may rep­res­ent their shares at a gen­er­al meet­ing in per­son or be rep­res­en­ted by a third party. Un­less the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation provide oth­er­wise, the third party need not be a share­hold­er.

³ A SICAV shall keep a re­gister of the shares, in which the names and ad­dresses of com­pany share­hold­ers are re­cor­ded. It shall also keep a re­gister un­der Art­icle 697l of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁷⁴ of the be­ne­fi­cial own­ers of the shares held by com­pany share­hold­ers.⁷⁵

⁴ The art­icles of as­so­ci­ation may spe­cify that the com­pany share­hold­ers and in­vestor share­hold­ers are both en­titled to at least one seat on the board of dir­ect­ors in the case of self-man­aged as well as ex­tern­ally man­aged SICAVs.⁷⁶

¹ Com­pany share­hold­ers whose shares are not lis­ted on a stock ex­change are sub­ject to the ob­lig­a­tion to give no­tice un­der Art­icle 697j of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁷⁸.

² The con­sequences of fail­ure to com­ply with ob­lig­a­tion to give no­tice are gov­erned by Art­icle 697m of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions.

¹ Each share car­ries one vote.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may au­thor­ise FINMA to or­der the split­ting or mer­ging of shares in a share class.

In­spec­tion rights are based on the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁸⁰ re­gard­ing the share­hold­ers’ in­spec­tion rights un­less this Act provides oth­er­wise.

In all oth­er re­spects, Art­icles 78 et seq. ap­ply.

¹ The su­preme gov­ern­ing body of the SICAV is the gen­er­al meet­ing of share­hold­ers.

² The gen­er­al meet­ing is held every year with­in four months of the close of the busi­ness year.

³ Un­less oth­er­wise provided for by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, in all oth­er re­spects, the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁸¹ re­gard­ing the gen­er­al meet­ings of com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares ap­ply.⁸²

¹ The board of dir­ect­ors con­sists of at least three but no more than sev­en mem­bers.

² The art­icles of as­so­ci­ation may au­thor­ise the board of dir­ect­ors to trans­fer man­age­ment and rep­res­ent­a­tion in full or in part to in­di­vidu­al mem­bers or third parties in ac­cord­ance with the or­gan­iz­a­tion­al reg­u­la­tions.

³ The per­sons hold­ing ex­ec­ut­ive powers at the SICAV and cus­todi­an bank must be in­de­pend­ent of the oth­er party.

⁴ The board of dir­ect­ors ful­fils the du­ties as­so­ci­ated with the of­fer­ing of fin­an­cial in­stru­ments un­der Title 3 of the FinSA⁸³.⁸⁴

⁵ The ad­min­is­tra­tion of a SICAV may be del­eg­ated only to an au­thor­ised fund man­age­ment com­pany in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 32 Fin­IA⁸⁵ that has au­thor­isa­tion.⁸⁶

⁶ Un­less oth­er­wise provided for by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil, in all oth­er re­spects, the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁸⁷ re­gard­ing the board of dir­ect­ors of com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares ap­ply.⁸⁸

A SICAV shall ap­point an audit com­pany (Art. 126 et seq.).

Se­cur­it­ies funds are open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes which in­vest their as­sets in se­cur­it­ies and com­ply with the laws of the European Com­munit­ies.

¹ Se­cur­it­ies funds may in­vest in trans­fer­able se­cur­it­ies is­sued on a large scale and in non-se­cur­it­ised rights hav­ing the same func­tion (un­cer­ti­fied se­cur­it­ies) and which are traded on a stock ex­change or an­oth­er reg­u­lated mar­ket that is open to the pub­lic, in ad­di­tion to oth­er li­quid fin­an­cial as­sets.

² The fund man­age­ment com­pany may also hold a lim­ited volume of oth­er se­cur­it­ies and rights, as well as ad­equate li­quid­ity.

¹ The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV may em­ploy the fol­low­ing in- vest­ment tech­niques for the pur­pose of ef­fi­cient man­age­ment:

a.

se­cur­it­ies lend­ing;

b.

re­pur­chase agree­ments;

c.

bor­row­ing of funds, though only on a tem­por­ary basis and up to a cer­tain per­cent­age;

d.

pledging or trans­fer­ring the own­er­ship of col­lat­er­al, however, only up to a cer­tain per­cent­age.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may per­mit oth­er in­vest­ment tech­niques such as short selling and the grant­ing of loans.

³ It defines the per­cent­age lim­its. FINMA reg­u­lates the de­tails.

¹ The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV may con­duct trans­ac­tions in de­riv­at­ives provided:

a.

such trans­ac­tions do not res­ult in a change to the in­vest­ment char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the se­cur­it­ies fund;

b.

they have an ap­pro­pri­ate or­gan­isa­tion­al struc­ture and ad­equate risk man­age­ment;

c.

the per­sons en­trus­ted with pro­cessing and mon­it­or­ing are qual­i­fied to do so, and can at all times com­pre­hend and track the ef­fect of the de­riv­at­ives used.

² The over­all ex­pos­ure to trans­ac­tions in­volving de­riv­at­ives may not ex­ceed a cer­tain per­cent­age of the fund's net as­sets. Ex­pos­ure to trans­ac­tions in­volving de­riv­at­ives must be cal­cu­lated in re­la­tion to the stat­utory and reg­u­lat­ory lim­its, spe­cific­ally with re­gard to risk di­ver­si­fic­a­tion.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the per­cent­age rate. FINMA reg­u­lates the de­tails.

¹ In re­la­tion to their in­vest­ments, the fund man­age­ment com­pany and SICAV must com­ply with the prin­ciples of risk di­ver­si­fic­a­tion. As a rule, they may in­vest only a cer­tain per­cent­age of the fund's as­sets in the same debt is­suer or com­pany.

² The vot­ing rights ac­quired through the pur­chase of se­cur­it­ies or rights in a single debt is­suer or com­pany may not ex­ceed a cer­tain per­cent­age.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­cides the per­cent­age rates. FINMA reg­u­lates the de­tails.

Real es­tate funds are open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes which in­vest their as­sets in real es­tate.

¹ Real es­tate funds may in­vest their as­sets in:

a.

prop­erty, in­clud­ing fix­tures and fit­tings;

b.

in­vest­ments in and claims on real es­tate com­pan­ies whose sole ob­ject­ive is the pur­chase and sale and/or the rent­al and lease of their own prop­erty, provided that at least two thirds of their cap­it­al and vot­ing rights are in­cor­por­ated in the in­vest­ment fund;

c.

units in oth­er real es­tate in­vest­ment funds and lis­ted real es­tate in­vest­ment com­pan­ies amount­ing to no more than 25% of the fund's total as­sets;

d.

for­eign real es­tate se­cur­it­ies whose value can be ad­equately val­ued.

² Co-own­er­ship of prop­erty is per­mit­ted only if the fund man­age­ment com­pany or the SICAV can ex­ert a dom­in­ant in­flu­ence.

In or­der to se­cure their li­ab­il­it­ies, the fund man­age­ment com­pany and SICAV must main­tain an ad­equate pro­por­tion of the fund's as­sets in short-term fixed-in­terest se­cur­it­ies or in funds avail­able at short no­tice.

The fund man­age­ment com­pany and SICAV may con­duct de­riv­at­ive trans­ac­tions provided they com­ply with the in­vest­ment policy. The pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing the use of de­riv­at­ives for se­cur­it­ies funds (Art. 56) shall ap­ply ac­cord­ingly.

In­vest­ments must be di­ver­si­fied by type of prop­erty, pur­pose of use, age, build­ing fab­ric and loc­a­tion.

¹ The fund man­age­ment com­pany shall bear re­spons­ib­il­ity with re­gard to the in­vestors for en­sur­ing that the real es­tate com­pan­ies be­long­ing to the real es­tate fund com­ply with this Act and with the fund reg­u­la­tions.

² The fund man­age­ment com­pany, cus­todi­an bank and its agents, as well as closely re­lated nat­ur­al and leg­al per­sons, may not ac­quire real es­tate as­sets from real es­tate funds or as­sign any such as­sets to them.

³ A SICAV may not ac­quire any real es­tate as­sets from the com­pany share­hold­ers, their agents, or closely con­nec­ted nat­ur­al or leg­al per­sons, nor may it as­sign such as­sets to them.

⁴ If jus­ti­fied, in­di­vidu­al situ­ations may arise where FINMA may grant an ex­emp­tion from the ban on trans­ac­tions with closely re­lated per­sons as defined in para­graphs 2 and 3 if this is in the in­terest of the in­vestors. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the ex­emp­tion cri­ter­ia.⁸⁹

¹ The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV shall ap­point at least two nat­ur­al per­sons or one leg­al per­son as valu­ation ex­perts. Ap­point­ments re­quire the ap­prov­al of FINMA.⁹¹

² Ap­prov­al is gran­ted if the valu­ation ex­perts:⁹²

a.

pos­sess the ne­ces­sary qual­i­fic­a­tions;

b.

are in­de­pend­ent;

c.⁹³

...

³ The valu­ation ex­perts must con­duct their valu­ations with the due di­li­gence and ex­pert­ise re­quired of a valu­ation ex­pert.⁹⁴

⁴ FINMA may make re­cog­ni­tion de­pend­ent on the con­clu­sion of pro­fes­sion­al in­dem­nity in­sur­ance or on the evid­ence of fin­an­cial guar­an­tees.⁹⁵

⁵ It may stip­u­late ad­di­tion­al re­quire­ments for the valu­ation ex­perts and de­scribe the valu­ation meth­ods to be ad­op­ted.⁹⁶

¹ The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV may com­mis­sion the con­struc­tion of build­ings provided the fund reg­u­la­tions ex­pli­citly per­mit the pur­chase of build­ing land and the ex­e­cu­tion of con­struc­tion pro­jects.

² They may pledge land and cede the rights of li­en as col­lat­er­al; however, the en- cum­brance may not ex­ceed on av­er­age a cer­tain per­cent­age of the mar­ket value of all real es­tate as­sets.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil defines the per­cent­age rate. FINMA reg­u­lates the de­tails.

¹ The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV must of­fer new units first to ex­ist­ing in­vestors.

² The in­vestors may re­quest the re­demp­tion of their units at the end of a fin­an­cial year provided they give twelve months' pri­or no­tice.

The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV en­sure that real es­tate fund units are reg­u­larly traded via a bank or a se­cur­it­ies deal­er on a stock ex­change or over the counter.

Oth­er funds for tra­di­tion­al and al­tern­at­ive in­vest­ments are open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes that are neither se­cur­it­ies funds nor real es­tate funds.

¹ In par­tic­u­lar, in­vest­ments in se­cur­it­ies, pre­cious metals, real es­tate, com­mod­it­ies, de­riv­at­ives, units of oth­er col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes, as well as oth­er as­sets and rights, are per­mit­ted for oth­er funds for tra­di­tion­al and al­tern­at­ive in­vest­ments.

² The fol­low­ing in­vest­ments in par­tic­u­lar may be con­duc­ted for these funds:

a.

those that have only lim­ited mar­ket­ab­il­ity;

b.

those that are sub­ject to strong price fluc­tu­ations;

c.

those that ex­hib­it lim­ited risk di­ver­si­fic­a­tion;

d.

those that are dif­fi­cult to value.

¹ Oth­er funds for tra­di­tion­al in­vest­ments in­clude open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes which in terms of their in­vest­ments, in­vest­ment tech­niques and in­vest­ment re­stric­tions ex­hib­it a risk pro­file that is typ­ic­al for tra­di­tion­al in­vest­ments.

² Oth­er funds for tra­di­tion­al in­vest­ments are sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing the use of in­vest­ment tech­niques and de­riv­at­ives for se­cur­it­ies funds.

¹ Oth­er funds for al­tern­at­ive in­vest­ments in­clude open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes whose in­vest­ments, struc­ture, in­vest­ment tech­niques (short-selling, bor­row­ing of funds, etc.) and in­vest­ment re­stric­tions ex­hib­it a risk pro­file that is typ­ic­al for al­tern­at­ive in­vest­ments.

² Lever­age is per­mit­ted only up to a cer­tain per­cent­age of the fund's net as­sets. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the per­cent­age rate. FINMA reg­u­lates the de­tails.

³ Ref­er­ence must be made in the fund name and in the pro­spect­us and key in­form­a­tion doc­u­ment in ac­cord­ance with Title 3 of the FinSA⁹⁷, as well as in ad­vert­ising ma­ter­i­al, to the spe­cial risks in­volved in al­tern­at­ive in­vest­ments.⁹⁸

⁴ ...⁹⁹

⁵ FINMA may al­low the trans­ac­tion-re­lated set­tle­ment ser­vices of a dir­ectly in­vest- ing oth­er fund for al­tern­at­ive in­vest­ments to be provided by a reg­u­lated in­sti­tu­tion spe­cial­iz­ing in such trans­ac­tions (prime broker). It may spe­cify which mon­it­or­ing func­tions must be un­der­taken by the fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV.

¹ The cus­todi­an bank must be a bank pur­su­ant to the Fed­er­al Act on Banks and Sav­ings Banks of 8 Novem­ber 1934¹⁰⁰ and have an ap­pro­pri­ate or­gan­isa­tion­al struc­ture to act as cus­todi­an bank to col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes.¹⁰¹

² In ad­di­tion to the per­sons en­trus­ted with the man­age­ment, the per­sons en­trus­ted with the tasks of cus­todi­an bank activ­ity must also com­ply with the re­quire­ments laid down in Art­icle 14 para­graph 1 let­ter a.

¹ The cus­todi­an bank is re­spons­ible for the safe­keep­ing of the in­vest­ment fund's as­sets, the is­sue and re­demp­tion of units, as well as pay­ment trans­fers on be­half of the in­vest­ment fund.

² It may trans­fer the re­spons­ib­il­ity for the safe­keep­ing of the in­vest­ment fund's as­sets to third-party cus­todi­ans and cent­ral se­cur­it­ies de­pos­it­or­ies in Switzer­land or abroad, provided this is in the in­terest of ef­fi­cient safe­keep­ing. In­vestors must be in­formed in the pro­spect­us and key in­form­a­tion doc­u­ment in ac­cord­ance with Title 3 of the FinSA¹⁰² about the risks as­so­ci­ated with such trans­fers.¹⁰³

^2bis Fin­an­cial in­stru­ments may only be trans­ferred (para­graph 2) to reg­u­lated third-party cus­todi­ans and cent­ral se­cur­it­ies de­pos­it­or­ies. This does not ap­ply to man­dat­ory safe­keep­ing at a loc­a­tion where the trans­fer to reg­u­lated third-party cus­todi­ans and col­lect­ive se­cur­it­ies de­pos­it­or­ies is not pos­sible, in par­tic­u­lar due to man­dat­ory leg­al pro­vi­sions or to the in­vest­ment product’s mod­al­it­ies. In­vestors must be in­formed in the product doc­u­ment­a­tion of safe­keep­ing by non-reg­u­lated third-party cus­todi­ans or col­lect­ive se­cur­it­ies de­pos­it­or­ies.¹⁰⁴

³ The cus­todi­an bank en­sures that the fund man­age­ment com­pany or the SICAV com­plies with this Act and with the fund reg­u­la­tions. It veri­fies wheth­er:¹⁰⁵

a.

the cal­cu­la­tion of the net as­set value and of the is­sue and re­demp­tion prices of the units is in com­pli­ance with this Act and with the fund reg­u­la­tions;

b.

the in­vest­ment de­cisions are in com­pli­ance with this Act and with the fund reg­u­la­tions;

c.

the in­come is ap­pro­pri­ated in ac­cord­ance with the fund reg­u­la­tions.

⁴ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the re­quire­ments for act­ing as a cus­todi­an bank and may spe­cify para­met­ers for the pro­tec­tion of the se­cur­it­ies in­vest­ments.¹⁰⁶

¹ In the case of in­vest­ment funds, the pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing a change of fund man­age­ment com­pany (Art. 39 Fin­IA¹⁰⁷) also ap­ply ac­cord­ingly to a change of cus­todi­an bank.¹⁰⁸

² In the case of a SICAV, a change of cus­todi­an bank re­quires a con­tract in writ­ing or in an­oth­er form demon­strable via text, and must be ap­proved in ad­vance by FINMA.¹⁰⁹

³ FINMA shall pub­lish its de­cision in the me­dia of pub­lic­a­tion.

¹ On con­clud­ing a con­tract, or sub­scrib­ing and pay­ing in cash, in­vestors ac­quire:

a.

in the case of an in­vest­ment fund, a claim against the fund man­age­ment com­pany to par­ti­cip­ate in the as­sets and in­come of the in­vest­ment fund in ac­cord­ance with the fund units they ac­quire;

b.

in the case of a SICAV, an in­terest in the com­pany and its un­ap­pro­pri­ated net earn­ings in ac­cord­ance with the shares they ac­quire.

² They are, in prin­ciple, en­titled at all times to re­quest the re­demp­tion of their units and pay­ment of the re­demp­tion amount in cash. Unit cer­ti­fic­ates must be re­turned for can­cel­la­tion pur­poses.

³ In the case of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes with vari­ous unit classes, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the de­tails.

⁴ FINMA may al­low a derog­a­tion from the duty to make pay­ments in and out of the fund in cash.

⁵ In the case of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes with sub­funds, the as­set en­ti­tle­ments are based on Art­icle 93 para­graph 2 and Art­icle 94 para­graph 2.

¹ In ac­cord­ance with the in­vest­ment pro­vi­sions (Art. 54 et seq., Art. 59 et seq. and Art. 69 et seq.), the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in the case of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes whose value is dif­fi­cult to as­cer­tain, or which have lim­ited mar­ket­ab­il­ity, spe­cify ex­emp­tions from the right to re­deem at any time.

² However, it may only sus­pend the right to re­deem at any time for a max­im­um peri­od of five years.

The is­sue and re­demp­tion prices of the units are based on the net as­set value per unit on the day of valu­ation, plus or minus any fees and ex­penses.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines in which in­stances the fund reg­u­la­tions may spe­cify a lim­ited de­fer­ment of the re­pay­ment of the units in the in­terest of all in­vestors.

² FINMA may in ex­cep­tion­al in­stances grant lim­ited de­fer­ment for the re­pay­ment of the units in the in­terest of all in­vestors.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil en­forces re­demp­tion if:

a.

this is ne­ces­sary to safe­guard the repu­ta­tion of the fin­an­cial mar­ket, and spe­cific­ally to com­bat money laun­der­ing;

b.

the in­vestor no longer meets the stat­utory, reg­u­lat­ory or con­trac­tu­al re­quire­ments, or the re­quire­ments set out in the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation, for par­ti­cip­a­tion in a col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme.

¹ The net as­set value of an open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme is cal­cu­lated at the mar­ket value as of the end of the fin­an­cial year, and on each day on which units are is­sued or re­deemed.

² The net as­set value per unit rep­res­ents the mar­ket value of the fund's as­sets, less all the fund's li­ab­il­it­ies, di­vided by the num­ber of units in cir­cu­la­tion.

³ FINMA may per­mit a meth­od of cal­cu­lat­ing the net as­set value(s) that dif­fers from that spe­cified in para­graph 2, provided such meth­od meets in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards and the pro­tect­ive pur­pose of this Act is not im­paired as a res­ult.

⁴ The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV pub­lish the net as­set val­ues at reg­u­lar in­ter­vals.

¹ The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV shall on re­quest sup­ply in­vestors with in­form­a­tion con­cern­ing the basis for the cal­cu­la­tion of the net as­set value per unit.

² If in­vestors ex­press an in­terest in more de­tailed in­form­a­tion on spe­cif­ic busi­ness trans­ac­tions ef­fected by the fund man­age­ment com­pany or the SICAV, such as the ex­er­cising of mem­ber­ship and cred­it­ors' rights, or on risk man­age­ment, they must be giv­en such in­form­a­tion at any time.¹¹¹

³ The in­vestors may re­quest at the courts of the re­gistered of­fice of the fund man­age­ment com­pany or the SICAV that the audit com­pany or an­oth­er ex­pert in­vest­ig­ate the mat­ter which re­quires cla­ri­fic­a­tion and fur­nish the in­vestors with a re­port.

If the open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme is un­law­fully denied as­set en­ti­tle­ments or be­ne­fits are with­held from it, the in­vestors may claim com­pens­a­tion from the open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme con­cerned.

¹ The in­vestors may re­quest that the courts ap­point a rep­res­ent­at­ive if they wish to pur­sue a claim for dam­ages in fa­vour of the open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme.

² The court shall give no­tice of the ap­point­ment in the me­dia of pub­lic­a­tion of the open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme.

³ The rep­res­ent­at­ive has the same rights as the in­vestors.

⁴ If the rep­res­ent­at­ive files an ac­tion for dam­ages in fa­vour of the open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme, the in­vestors may no longer ex­er­cise their in­di­vidu­al right to file such an ac­tion.

⁵ Un­less the court de­cides oth­er­wise, the ex­penses in­curred by the rep­res­ent­at­ive are paid by the in­vest­ment fund.

Sep­ar­ate books of ac­count must be kept for each open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme. Un­less this Act or the im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions provide oth­er­wise, Art­icle 662 et seq. of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹¹² ap­ply.

¹ In­vest­ments which are lis­ted on a stock ex­change or an­oth­er reg­u­lated mar­ket open to the pub­lic shall be val­ued at the prices paid on the main mar­ket.

² Oth­er in­vest­ments for which no cur­rent price is avail­able must be val­ued at the price that would prob­ably be ob­tained in a di­li­gent sale at the time of valu­ation.

¹ An an­nu­al re­port shall be pub­lished for each open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme with­in four months of the close of the fin­an­cial year; it shall con­tain the fol­low­ing data in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the an­nu­al ac­counts con­sist­ing of a state­ment of net as­sets or the bal­ance sheet and the profit and loss ac­count, to­geth­er with in­form­a­tion con­cern­ing the ap­pro­pri­ation of net in­come and the dis­clos­ure of ex­penses;

b.

the num­ber of units re­deemed and newly is­sued dur­ing the fin­an­cial year, as well as the fi­nal bal­ance of the is­sued units;

c.

the in­vent­ory of the fund's as­sets at mar­ket value and the res­ult­ing value (net as­set value) of a fund unit as of the last day of the fin­an­cial year;

d.

the valu­ation prin­ciples as well as the prin­ciples used for the cal­cu­la­tion of the net as­set value;

e.

a break­down of the buy and sell trans­ac­tions;

f.

the names of per­sons and com­pan­ies to which du­ties have been en­trus­ted;

g.

in­form­a­tion re­lat­ing to mat­ters of par­tic­u­lar eco­nom­ic or leg­al sig­ni­fic­ance, spe­cific­ally:

1.

amend­ments to the fund reg­u­la­tions,

2.

ma­ter­i­al ques­tions con­cern­ing in­ter­pret­a­tion of this Act and the fund reg­u­la­tions,

3.

a change of fund man­age­ment com­pany and cus­todi­an bank,

4.¹¹³

changes con­cern­ing the ex­ec­ut­ive of­ficers at the fund man­age­ment com­pany, SICAV or as­set man­ager of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes,

5.

leg­al dis­putes;

h.

the per­form­ance of the open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme, pos­sibly bench­mark­ing it with com­par­able in­vest­ments;

i.

a brief re­port by the audit com­pany re­gard­ing the in­form­a­tion men­tioned above, as well as the items set out in Art­icle 90 in the case of real es­tate funds.

² The state­ment of net as­sets of the in­vest­ment fund and the bal­ance sheet of the SICAV must be pre­pared on the basis of mar­ket val­ues.

³ A semi-an­nu­al re­port must be is­sued with­in two months after the end of the first half of the fin­an­cial year. The re­port con­tains an un­audited state­ment of net as­sets or un­audited bal­ance sheet and in­come state­ment, as well as in­form­a­tion as per Para­graph 1 let­ters b, c and e.

⁴ The an­nu­al and semi-an­nu­al re­ports shall be filed with FINMA the latest at the time of pub­lic­a­tion.

⁵ These are made avail­able for in­spec­tion free of charge to in­ter­ested parties for ten years.

¹ The an­nu­al ac­counts of a real es­tate fund con­sist of a con­sol­id­ated state­ment of net as­sets or bal­ance sheet and profit and loss ac­count of the real es­tate fund and the as­so­ci­ated real es­tate com­pan­ies. Art­icle 89 ap­plies ac­cord­ingly.

² The state­ment of net as­sets must show prop­erty as­sets at mar­ket value.

³ The in­vent­ory of the fund's as­sets must state the pur­chase price and es­tim­ated mar­ket val­ues of the in­di­vidu­al prop­erty as­sets.

⁴ In ad­di­tion to the in­form­a­tion re­quired as per Art­icle 89, the an­nu­al re­port and the an­nu­al ac­counts shall con­tain the par­tic­u­lars of the valu­ation ex­pert, the valu­ation meth­ods and the cap­it­al­isa­tion and dis­count­ing rates ap­plied.

FINMA is­sues ad­di­tion­al reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing the duty to main­tain books of ac­count, valu­ation, fin­an­cial state­ments and pub­lic­a­tion re­quire­ments.

In the case of an open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme with sub­funds (um­brella fund), each sub­fund con­sti­tutes a col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme in its own right and has its own net as­set value.

¹ In the case of an um­brella fund, in­vestors are only en­titled to the in­come and as­sets of the re­spect­ive sub­fund in which they are par­ti­cip­at­ing.

² Each sub­fund is li­able only for its own li­ab­il­it­ies.

¹ In­vestors are only en­titled to par­ti­cip­ate in the as­sets and in­come of the re­spect­ive sub­fund in ac­cord­ance with the num­ber of shares they hold.

² Each sub­fund un­der para­graph 1 is li­able only for its own li­ab­il­it­ies.¹¹⁴

¹ The fol­low­ing re­struc­tur­ings of open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes are per­mit­ted:

a.

a mer­ger through the trans­fer of as­sets and li­ab­il­it­ies;

b.

a con­ver­sion to a dif­fer­ent leg­al status of a col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme;

c.

in the case of SICAVs: the trans­fer of as­sets in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 69–77 of the Mer­gers Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003¹¹⁶.

² A re­struc­tur­ing in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 let­ters b and c may only be entered in the Com­mer­cial Re­gister fol­low­ing FINMA’s ap­prov­al in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 15.

¹ An in­vest­ment fund is dis­solved:

a.

if it was formed for an un­lim­ited peri­od: on no­tice by the fund man­age­ment com­pany or the cus­todi­an bank;

b.

if it was formed for a fixed peri­od: on ex­piry of such peri­od;

c.

by or­der of FINMA:

1.

if it was formed for a fixed peri­od: based on reas­on­able cause, at the re- quest of the fund man­age­ment com­pany or the cus­todi­an bank,

2.

if the min­im­um as­sets fall be­low the re­quired amount,

3.

in the cases spe­cified in Art­icle 13 para­graph 3 et seq.

² A SICAV is dis­solved:

a.

if it was formed for an un­lim­ited peri­od: by res­ol­u­tion of the com­pany share­hold­ers, provided such res­ol­u­tion is car­ried by at least two thirds of the com­pany shares;

b.

if it was formed for a fixed peri­od: on ex­piry of such peri­od;

c.

by or­der of FINMA:

1.

if it was formed for a fixed peri­od: based on reas­on­able cause, by reso- lu­tion of the com­pany share­hold­ers, provided such res­ol­u­tion is car­ried by at least two thirds of the com­pany shares,

2.

if the min­im­um as­sets fall be­low the stip­u­lated amount,

3.

in the cases spe­cified in Art­icle 133 et seq.;

d.

in the oth­er cases spe­cified by the Act.

³ For the dis­sol­u­tion of sub­funds, para­graphs 1 and 2 ap­ply ac­cord­ingly.

⁴ The fund man­age­ment com­pany and the SICAV shall no­ti­fy FINMA of the disso- lu­tion forth­with, and shall an­nounce the dis­sol­u­tion in the me­dia of pub­lic­a­tion.

¹ Fol­low­ing its dis­sol­u­tion, an in­vest­ment fund or SICAV may neither is­sue nor re­deem any units.

² In the case of an in­vest­ment fund, in­vestors have a claim to a pro­por­tion­ate share of the pro­ceeds of li­quid­a­tion.

³ In the case of a SICAV, in­vestors have the right to a pro­por­tion­ate share of the pro­ceeds of the li­quid­a­tion. The rights of com­pany share­hold­ers are sub­or­din­ate. In all oth­er re­spects, Art­icles 737 et seq. of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹¹⁷ ap­ply.

¹ A lim­ited part­ner­ship for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment is a part­ner­ship whose sole ob­ject is col­lect­ive in­vest­ment. At least one mem­ber bears un­lim­ited li­ab­il­ity (gen­er­al part­ner), while the oth­er mem­bers (lim­ited part­ners) are li­able only up to a spe­cified amount (lim­ited part­ner’s con­tri­bu­tion).

² Gen­er­al part­ners must be com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares with their re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land. Com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares without au­thor­isa­tion as man­agers of col­lect­ive as­sets may only be act­ive as a gen­er­al part­ner in one lim­ited part­ner­ship for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment.¹¹⁸

^2bis The con­di­tions for ob­tain­ing an au­thor­isa­tion as defined in Art­icle 14 also ap­ply to the gen­er­al part­ners.¹¹⁹

³ Lim­ited part­ners must be qual­i­fied in­vestors as defined in Art­icle 10 para­graph 3 or 3^ter.¹²⁰

Un­less this Act provides oth­er­wise, the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹²¹ con­cern­ing lim­ited part­ner­ships ap­ply.

¹ The part­ner­ship ex­ists on be­ing entered in the Com­mer­cial Re­gister.

² No­ti­fic­a­tion of the facts to be entered or any amend­ments thereto must be signed by all gen­er­al part­ners in the Com­mer­cial Re­gister or sub­mit­ted in writ­ing to­geth­er with not­ar­ised sig­na­tures.

The part­ner­ship name must con­tain a de­scrip­tion of the leg­al status or its per­mit­ted ab­bre­vi­ation.

¹ The part­ner­ship agree­ment must con­tain pro­vi­sions re­gard­ing:

a.

the part­ner­ship name and its re­gistered of­fice;

b.

the ob­ject;

c.

the com­pany name and the re­gistered of­fice of the gen­er­al part­ners;

d.

total lim­ited part­ners' con­tri­bu­tions;

e.

the dur­a­tion;

f.

the con­di­tions of the lim­ited part­ners’ join­ing and de­part­ing;

g.

the main­ten­ance of a re­gister of lim­ited part­ners;

h.

the in­vest­ments, in­vest­ment policy, in­vest­ment re­stric­tions, risk di­ver­si­fic­a­tion, the risks as­so­ci­ated with in­vest­ment, and the in­vest­ment tech­niques;

i.

the del­eg­a­tion of man­age­ment and rep­res­ent­a­tion;

j.

the ap­point­ment of a cus­todi­an bank and a pay­ing agent.

² The part­ner­ship agree­ment must be in writ­ing.

³ ...¹²³

¹ The part­ner­ship con­ducts in­vest­ments in risk cap­it­al.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may also per­mit oth­er in­vest­ments.

¹ The lim­ited part­ners are en­titled without the con­sent of the gen­er­al part­ners to con­duct oth­er busi­ness trans­ac­tions for their own ac­count and on be­half of third parties and to par­ti­cip­ate in oth­er com­pan­ies.

² Un­less the part­ner­ship agree­ment provides oth­er­wise, the gen­er­al part­ners may without the con­sent of the lim­ited part­ners con­duct oth­er busi­ness trans­ac­tions for their own ac­count and on be­half of third parties and par­ti­cip­ate in oth­er com­pan­ies, provided this is dis­closed and the in­terests of the lim­ited part­ner­ship for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment are not im­paired as a con­sequence.

¹ Where spe­cified by the part­ner­ship agree­ment, the gen­er­al part­ner may de­cide on the join­ing and de­par­ture of lim­ited part­ners.

² This is sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹²⁴ re­gard­ing the ex­clu­sion of own­ers of the lim­ited part­ner­ship.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may pre­scribe com­puls­ory ex­clu­sion. This shall be based on Art­icle 82.

¹ The lim­ited part­ners are en­titled to in­spect the busi­ness ac­counts of the part­ner­ship at any time. Busi­ness con­fid­en­ti­al­ity with re­gard to the com­pan­ies in which the lim­ited part­ner­ship in­vests shall be pre­served.

² The lim­ited part­ners are en­titled to ob­tain in­form­a­tion about the busi­ness per­form­ance of the part­ner­ship at least once every quarter.

The part­ner­ship shall ap­point an audit com­pany (Art. 126 et seq.).

¹ With re­spect to the fin­an­cial state­ments of the part­ner­ship and the valu­ation of the as­sets, Art­icle 88 et seq. ap­ply ac­cord­ingly.

² In­ter­na­tion­ally re­cog­nised stand­ards must be ob­served.

The part­ner­ship is dis­solved:

a.

by res­ol­u­tion of the own­ers;

b.

for the reas­ons set forth in this Act and in the part­ner­ship agree­ment;

c.

by or­der of FINMA in the cases spe­cified in Art­icle 133 et seq.

¹ SI­CAF is a com­pany lim­ited by shares pur­su­ant to the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹²⁵ (Art. 620 et seq. CO):

a.

the sole ob­ject of which is the in­vest­ment of col­lect­ive cap­it­al;

b.

the share­hold­ers of which are not re­quired to be qual­i­fied pur­su­ant to Art­icle 10 para­graph 3; and

c.

which is not lis­ted on a Swiss stock ex­change.

² There must be an ap­pro­pri­ate re­la­tion­ship between a SI­CAF’s equity and its total as­sets. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil defines this re­la­tion­ship.¹²⁶

¹ The com­pany name must con­tain the des­ig­na­tion of its leg­al status or the ab­bre­vi­ation there­of (SI­CAF).

² In all oth­er re­spects, the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹²⁷ re­gard­ing the name of com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares ap­ply.

Un­less this Act provides oth­er­wise, the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹²⁸ con­cern­ing com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares ap­ply.

¹ The share cap­it­al is fully paid up.

² The is­su­ing of vot­ing shares, par­ti­cip­a­tion cer­ti­fic­ates, di­vidend right cer­ti­fic­ates and pref­er­ence shares is pro­hib­ited.

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may spe­cify com­puls­ory re­demp­tion. This is laid down in Art­icle 82.

The SI­CAF must ap­point a cus­todi­an bank in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 72–74.

¹ A SI­CAF defines the in­vest­ments, in­vest­ment policy, in­vest­ment re­stric­tions, risk di­ver­si­fic­a­tion, to­geth­er with the risks as­so­ci­ated with the in­vest­ments, in the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation and in the in­vest­ment reg­u­la­tions.

² The in­vest­ments are sub­ject to Art­icle 69; Art­icles 64, 70 and 71 ap­ply ac­cord­ing- ly.

³ Res­ol­u­tions to amend the in­vest­ment reg­u­la­tions must be passed by a ma­jor­ity of votes at the gen­er­al meet­ing.

With re­spect to the fin­an­cial state­ments, Art­icle 89 para­graph 1 let­ters a and c-i, para­graphs 2–4 and Art­icle 90 ap­ply ac­cord­ingly in ad­di­tion to the stat­utory pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing ac­count­ing stand­ards.

A SI­CAF shall ap­point an audit com­pany (Art. 126 et seq.).

¹ The fol­low­ing are con­sidered for­eign open-ended col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes:

a.

as­sets that were ac­cu­mu­lated on the basis of a fund con­tract or an­oth­er agree­ment with sim­il­ar ef­fect for the pur­pose of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment and are man­aged by a fund man­age­ment com­pany with its re­gistered of­fice and main ad­min­is­trat­ive of­fice abroad;

b.

com­pan­ies and schemes with their re­gistered of­fice and main ad­min­is­trat­ive of­fice loc­ated abroad whose pur­pose is col­lect­ive cap­it­al in­vest­ment and whose in­vestors have a leg­al right with re­gard to the com­pany it­self, or with re­gard to a closely as­so­ci­ated com­pany, to the re­demp­tion of their units at the net as­set value.

² Closed-end col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes are deemed to be com­pan­ies and schemes with their re­gistered of­fice and main ad­min­is­trat­ive of­fice loc­ated abroad whose pur­pose is col­lect­ive cap­it­al in­vest­ment and whose in­vestors have no leg­al right with re­gard to the com­pany it­self, or with re­gard to a closely con­nec­ted com­pany, to the re­demp­tion of their units at the net as­set value.

¹ For­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes must be ap­proved by FINMA be­fore they can be offered in Switzer­land to non-qual­i­fied in­vestors. The rep­res­ent­at­ive shall sub­mit the doc­u­ments re­quir­ing ap­prov­al to FINMA.¹³¹

² Ap­prov­al is gran­ted if:

a.¹³²

the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme, fund man­age­ment com­pany or com­pany, as­set man­ager of the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme and de­pos­it­ory are sub- ject to pub­lic su­per­vi­sion in­ten­ded to pro­tect in­vestors;

b.¹³³

with re­gard to or­gan­iz­a­tion, in­vestor rights and in­vest­ment policy, the fund man­age­ment com­pany or com­pany and the de­pos­it­ory are sub­ject to reg­ula- tions which are equi­val­ent to the pro­vi­sions of this Act;

c.

the des­ig­na­tion of the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme does not provide grounds for con­fu­sion or de­cep­tion;

d.¹³⁴

a rep­res­ent­at­ive and a pay­ing agent are ap­poin­ted for the of­fer of units in Switzer­land;

e.¹³⁵

there is an agree­ment on co­oper­a­tion and the ex­change of in­form­a­tion between FINMA and the for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­it­ies rel­ev­ant to the of­fer.

^2bis The rep­res­ent­at­ive and the pay­ing agent may only end their man­date with FINMA’s pri­or ap­prov­al.¹³⁶

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may spe­cify a sim­pli­fied, fast-track ap­prov­al pro­ced­ure for for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes provided such in­vest­ments have already been ap­proved by a for­eign su­per­vis­ory au­thor­ity, such ar­range­ment be­ing re­cip­roc­al.

⁴ For­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes which are offered in Switzer­land to qual­i­fied in­vestors in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 5 para­graph 1 FinSA¹³⁷ do not re­quire ap­prov­al but must meet the con­di­tions pur­su­ant to para­graph 2 let­ters c and d at all times.¹³⁸

⁵ Em­ploy­ee share par­ti­cip­a­tion schemes in the form of for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes that are offered ex­clus­ively to em­ploy­ees do not re­quire ap­prov­al.¹³⁹

¹ The pay­ing agent must be a bank pur­su­ant to the Fed­er­al Act on Banks and Sav­ings Banks of 8 Novem­ber 1934¹⁴⁰.

² The in­vestors may re­quest the is­sue and re­demp­tion of the units from the pay­ing agent.

As­sum­ing the mu­tu­al re­cog­ni­tion of reg­u­la­tions and meas­ures of an equi­val­ent stand­ard, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may con­clude in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies which spe­cify that col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes from the sig­nat­ory coun­tries merely have a duty to re­gister rather than the duty to ob­tain ap­prov­al.

¹ For­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes may be offered in Switzer­land to non-qual­i­fied in­vestors and to qual­i­fied in­vestors in Switzer­land in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 5 para­graph 1 FinSA¹⁴¹ only if the fund man­age­ment com­pany or the com­pany has first ap­poin­ted a rep­res­ent­at­ive to un­der­take the du­ties spe­cified in Art­icle 124, sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 122.¹⁴²

² The fund man­age­ment and the in­vest­ment scheme com­pany un­der­take to provide the rep­res­ent­at­ive with the in­form­a­tion the lat­ter may re­quire for the per­form­ance of its tasks.

¹ The rep­res­ent­at­ive rep­res­ents the for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme with re­gard to in­vestors and FINMA. The rep­res­ent­at­ive's powers of rep­res­ent­a­tion may not be re­stric­ted.

² The rep­res­ent­at­ive ob­serves the stat­utory ob­lig­a­tions to re­port, pub­lish and in­form, as well as the codes of con­duct of in­dustry bod­ies which have been de­clared to be the min­im­um stand­ard by FINMA. The rep­res­ent­at­ive's iden­tity must be dis­closed in every pub­lic­a­tion.

¹ The place of per­form­ance for units of the for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes offered in Switzer­land is the re­gistered of­fice of the rep­res­ent­at­ive.¹⁴⁴

² It shall con­tin­ue to be the re­gistered of­fice of the rep­res­ent­at­ive after the re­voc­a­tion of au­thor­isa­tion or fol­low­ing the dis­sol­u­tion of the for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme.

³ The place of jur­is­dic­tion is:

a.

the re­gistered of­fice of the rep­res­ent­at­ive; or

b.

the re­gistered of­fice or place of res­id­ence of the in­vestor.¹⁴⁵

¹ The fol­low­ing per­sons must ap­point an audit com­pany li­censed by Fed­er­al Audit Over­sight Au­thor­ity un­der Art­icle 9a para­graph 1 of the Aud­it­or Over­sight Act of 16 Decem­ber 2005¹⁴⁷ to carry out an audit un­der Art­icle 24 of the FIN­MASA¹⁴⁸:¹⁴⁹

a.¹⁵⁰.

fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies for the in­vest­ment funds they man­age;

b.

SICAVs;

c.

lim­ited part­ner­ships for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment;

d.

SI­CAFs;

e.¹⁵¹

...

f.

rep­res­ent­at­ives of for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes.

² ...¹⁵²

³ The same audit com­pany must audit the SICAV and any fund man­age­ment com­pany that it ap­points pur­su­ant to Art­icle 51 Para­graph 5. FINMA may grant ex­emp­tions.¹⁵³

⁴ ...¹⁵⁴

⁵ The per­sons named in para­graph 1, man­aged in­vest­ment funds and any real es­tate com­pan­ies be­long­ing to real es­tate funds or real es­tate in­vest­ment com­pan­ies must have their an­nu­al ac­counts and if ap­plic­able their con­sol­id­ated ac­counts audited by a state su­per­vised audit firm in ac­cord­ance with the prin­ciples of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹⁵⁵ on the or­din­ary audit.¹⁵⁶

⁶ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails. It may au­thor­ise FINMA to is­sue im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions on mat­ters of lim­ited scope, and in par­tic­u­lar on largely tech­nic­al mat­ters.¹⁵⁷

¹ The valu­ation ex­perts and real es­tate com­pan­ies be­long­ing to the col­lect­ive in vest­ment scheme shall provide the audit com­pany with full ac­cess to the ac­count­ing re­cords, the ac­count­ing vouch­ers, the re­cords and to the re­ports of the valu­ation ex­perts; moreover, they shall sup­ply them with all the in­form­a­tion needed to per­form the audit func­tion.

² The audit com­pany of the cus­todi­an bank and the audit com­pany of the oth­er li­censees co­oper­ate with each oth­er.

¹ FINMA is­sues the ne­ces­sary au­thor­isa­tions and ap­provals pur­su­ant to this Act and su­per­vises com­pli­ance with the stat­utory, con­trac­tu­al and reg­u­lat­ory pro­vi­sions as well as the pro­vi­sions of the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation.

² It does not re­view the ex­pedi­ency of the busi­ness de­cisions taken by the li­censees.

¹ In the event of in­fringe­ments of the con­trac­tu­al or reg­u­lat­ory pro­vi­sions or of the pro­vi­sions of the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation, the su­per­vis­ory in­stru­ments pur­su­ant to Art­icles 30–35 and 37 of the FIN­MASA¹⁶³ ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis.¹⁶⁴

² Art­icle 37 of FIN­MASA also ap­plies mu­tatis mutandis to ap­prov­al un­der the present Act.

³ If the in­vestors' rights ap­pear to be en­dangered, FINMA may or­der the li­censees to provide the ne­ces­sary col­lat­er­al.

⁴ If an en­force­able or­der is­sued by FINMA is not com­plied with after pri­or warn­ing with­in the dead­line that has been set, FINMA may it­self carry out the re­quired ac­tions at the ex­pense of the neg­li­gent party.

Li­censees from which au­thor­isa­tion has been with­drawn or col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes from which ap­prov­al has been with­drawn may be li­quid­ated by FINMA. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the de­tails.

¹ Where per­sons op­er­ate without any au­thor­isa­tion or ap­prov­al, FINMA may or­der that the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme be dis­solved.

² To safe­guard the in­terests of in­vestors, FINMA may or­der that the col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme be changed to an­oth­er leg­al status.

¹ In jus­ti­fied cases, FINMA may, in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 64, ap­point valu­ation ex­perts to value the as­sets of real es­tate funds or real es­tate in­vest­ment com­pan­ies.

² It may dis­miss the valu­ation ex­perts ap­poin­ted by the real es­tate fund or by the real es­tate in­vest­ment com­pany.

¹ Where there is jus­ti­fied con­cern that an au­thor­ised parties as defined in Art­icle 13 para­graph 2 let­ters b–d is ex­cess­ively in­debted or has ser­i­ous li­quid­ity prob­lems and there is no pro­spect of re­struc­tur­ing or re­struc­tur­ing has failed, FINMA shall with­draw au­thor­isa­tion from the fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion, ini­ti­ate bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings and make this pub­lic.¹⁶⁷

² The pro­vi­sions on com­pos­i­tion pro­ceed­ings (Art. 293–336 of the Fed­er­al Act of 11 April 1889¹⁶⁸ on Debt En­force­ment and Bank­ruptcy, DEBA) and on no­ti­fic­a­tion of the court (Art. 716a para. 1 no. 8, 725a para. 3, 725b para. 3 and 728c para. 3 of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹⁶⁹) do not ap­ply to the li­censee re­ferred to in para­graph 1.¹⁷⁰

³ FINMA ap­points one or more bank­ruptcy li­quid­at­ors. These are sub­ject to su­pervi- sory con­trol by FINMA and shall provide FINMA with a re­port if re­ques­ted.¹⁷¹

¹ The bank­ruptcy or­der has the ef­fect of a com­mence­ment of bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings pur­su­ant to Art­icles 197–220 DEBA¹⁷³.

² The bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings are con­duc­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 221–270 DEBA. Art­icles 138a–138c re­main sub­ject to re­ser­va­tion.

³ FINMA may is­sue dif­fer­ent rul­ings and or­ders.

¹ The bank­ruptcy li­quid­at­or may ap­ply to FINMA for the fol­low­ing:

a.

to con­sti­tute a cred­it­ors' meet­ing and de­term­ine its powers as well as the ne­ces­sary at­tend­ance and vot­ing quor­ums ne­ces­sary to pass res­ol­u­tions;

b.

to des­ig­nate a cred­it­ors' com­mit­tee and de­term­ine its com­pos­i­tion and powers.

² In the case of a SICAV with sub­funds as defined in Art­icle 94, a cred­it­ors' meet­ing or cred­it­ors' com­mit­tee may be es­tab­lished for each sub­fund.

³ FINMA is un­der no ob­lig­a­tion to fol­low the pro­pos­als of the bank­ruptcy li­quid­at­or.

¹ If all as­sets have been real­ised and all pro­cesses re­lat­ing to the cal­cu­la­tion of as­sets and li­ab­il­it­ies have been com­pleted, the bank­ruptcy li­quid­at­ors shall draw up the fi­nal dis­tri­bu­tion list as well as the fi­nal ac­counts and for­ward these to FINMA for ap­prov­al. Pro­cesses arising from the as­sign­ment of leg­al claims un­der Art­icle 260 DEBA¹⁷⁶ shall be dis­reg­arded.¹⁷⁷

² The ap­prov­al de­cision, to­geth­er with the dis­tri­bu­tion list and fi­nal ac­counts, shall be made avail­able for in­spec­tion for 30 days. No­tice of this avail­ab­il­ity for in­spec­tion shall be pub­lished in the Swiss Of­fi­cial Gaz­ette of Com­merce and on FINMA's web­site; ad­vance no­ti­fic­a­tion shall be giv­en to each of the cred­it­ors, stat­ing their share, as well as to the own­ers if need be.¹⁷⁸

³ FINMA is­sues the ne­ces­sary or­ders for the clos­ure of the pro­ceed­ings. It an­nounces the clos­ure pub­licly.

Art­icles 37fand 37g of the Fed­er­al Act on Banks and Sav­ings Banks of 8 Novem­ber 1934¹⁸⁰ ap­ply to re­cog­nising for­eign bank­ruptcy de­crees and in­solv­ency meas­ures, as well as for co­ordin­a­tion with for­eign in­solv­ency pro­ceed­ings.

¹ In bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings, cred­it­ors and own­ers of an au­thor­ised party covered by Art­icle 137 para­graph 1 may ap­peal only against real­isa­tion ac­tions and against ap­prov­al of the dis­tri­bu­tion list and the fi­nal ac­counts. Ap­peals pur­su­ant to Art­icle 17 DEBA¹⁸² shall be ex­cluded.

² The time­frame for fil­ing an ap­peal against ap­prov­al of the dis­tri­bu­tion list and the fi­nal ac­counts com­mences the day after they have been made avail­able for in­spec­tion.

³ Ap­peals in bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings have no sus­pens­ive ef­fect. The in­struct­ing judge can re­store the sus­pens­ive ef­fect on re­quest.

¹ Per­sons who per­form a role in the con­text of this Act must provide FINMA with all the in­form­a­tion and doc­u­ments that it re­quires to carry out its du­ties.

² FINMA may or­der li­censees to provide it with the in­form­a­tion it re­quires to carry out its du­ties.¹⁸⁴

¹ FINMA is au­thor­ised to col­lect data con­cern­ing li­censees’ busi­ness activ­it­ies and the trend of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes in or­der to main­tain mar­ket trans­par­ency or to ex­ecute its su­per­vis­ory func­tion. It may ap­point third parties to col­lect this in­form­a­tion or or­der li­censees to sub­mit this data them­selves.¹⁹⁰

² Third parties ap­poin­ted to col­lect data must treat such data as con­fid­en­tial.

³ The stat­ist­ic­al re­port­ing du­ties vis-à-vis the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank, as spe­cified in the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003¹⁹¹, to­geth­er with the right of FINMA and the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank to ex­change data are re­served.

¹ Any per­son who breaches their du­ties is li­able to the com­pany, the in­di­vidu­al in­vestors and the com­pany's cred­it­ors for the losses res­ult­ing there­from, un­less they prove that they are not at fault. Any per­son in­volved in the es­tab­lish­ment, man­age­ment, port­fo­lio man­age­ment, audit­ing or li­quid­a­tion of any of the fol­low­ing fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions may be held li­able:¹⁹²

a.

the fund man­age­ment com­pany;

b.

the SICAV;

c.

the lim­ited part­ner­ship for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment;

d.

the SI­CAF;

e.

the cus­todi­an bank;

f.¹⁹³

the man­ager of col­lect­ive as­sets;

g.

the rep­res­ent­at­ive of for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes;

h.

the audit com­pany;

i.

the li­quid­at­or.

² Li­ab­il­ity as defined in para­graph 1 also ap­plies to the valu­ation ex­pert and the rep­res­ent­at­ive of the in­vestors.¹⁹⁴

³ Any per­son who as­signs the ful­fil­ment of a task to a third party is li­able for the losses caused by that third party un­less they prove that they ap­plied the de­gree of due di­li­gence with re­gard to the se­lec­tion, in­struc­tion and mon­it­or­ing re­quired in the giv­en cir­cum­stances. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may reg­u­late the re­quire­ments for mon­it­or­ing, sub­ject to Art­icle 68 para­graph 3 Fin­IA¹⁹⁵.^{196 197}

⁴ The li­ab­il­ity of the ex­ec­ut­ive and gov­ern­ing bod­ies of the fund man­age­ment com- pany, SICAV and SI­CAF is based on the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹⁹⁸ gov­ern­ing com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares.

⁵ The li­ab­il­ity of a lim­ited part­ner­ship for col­lect­ive in­vest­ment is based on the pro­vi­sions of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions gov­ern­ing lim­ited part­ner­ships.

¹ If more than one per­son is li­able to pay com­pens­a­tion, each of them is li­able jointly and sev­er­ally to the ex­tent that the loss is at­trib­ut­able dir­ectly to them by reas­on of their fault and the cir­cum­stances.

² The claimant may file a claim for the over­all loss against more than one party jointly, and may re­quest that in the same pro­ceed­ings the court de­term­ine each in­di­vidu­al de­fend­ant's li­ab­il­ity to pay com­pens­a­tion.

³ The court, tak­ing all cir­cum­stances in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, de­term­ines re­course among the parties.

¹ The right to claim dam­ages pre­scribes five years from the date on which the per­son suf­fer­ing dam­age be­came aware of the dam­age and of the iden­tity of the per­son li­able for it, but not later than three years after the re­demp­tion of a unit and in any event not later than ten years after the date on which the harm­ful con­duct took place or ceased.

² If the per­son li­able has com­mit­ted a crim­in­al of­fence through his or her harm­ful con­duct, then not­with­stand­ing the fore­go­ing para­graphs the right to dam­ages or sat­is­fac­tion pre­scribes at the earli­est when the right to pro­sec­ute the of­fence be­comes time-barred. If the right to pro­sec­ute is no longer li­able to be­come time-barred be­cause a first in­stance crim­in­al judg­ment has been is­sued, the right to claim dam­ages or sat­is­fac­tion pre­scribes at the earli­est three years after no­tice of the judg­ment is giv­en.

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully does any of the fol­low­ing is li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty:²⁰¹

a.²⁰²

...

b.

es­tab­lishes a col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme without ap­prov­al or au­thor­isa­tion;

c.²⁰³

...

d.²⁰⁴

of­fers do­mest­ic and for­eign col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes that have not been ap­proved to non-qual­i­fied in­vestors;

e.

fails to main­tain the books of ac­count in an or­derly man­ner or does not ar- chive com­pany books of ac­count, re­cords and doc­u­ments as pre­scribed;

f.²⁰⁵

in an­nu­al re­port or semi-an­nu­al re­port:

1.

provides false in­form­a­tion or with­holds ma­ter­i­al facts,

2.

does not provide all the man­dat­ory in­form­a­tion;

g.²⁰⁶

with re­spect to the an­nu­al re­port or semi-an­nu­al re­port:

1.

fails to pro­duce them or fails to pro­duce them in an or­derly man­ner,

2.

fails to pub­lish it or fails to pub­lish it by the spe­cified dead­line;

h.

provides false in­form­a­tion to the audit com­pany, the in­vest­ig­at­ing of­ficer, the ad­min­is­trat­ive re­ceiv­er, the li­quid­at­or or FINMA or re­fuses to provide the re­ques­ted in­form­a­tion;

i.²⁰⁷

...

j.

as valu­ation ex­perts, com­mit a gross breach of the du­ties as­signed to them;

k.²⁰⁸

...

l.²⁰⁹

...

^1bis ...²¹⁰

² Where the of­fend­er acts through neg­li­gence, the pen­alty is a fine not ex­ceed­ing CHF 250,000.

³ ...²¹¹

¹ Any per­son who wil­fully does any of the fol­low­ing is li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing CHF 500,000:

a.

com­mits a breach of the pro­vi­sion con­cern­ing the pro­tec­tion against con­fu­sion or de­cep­tion (Art. 12);

b.

provides non-per­miss­ible, false or mis­lead­ing in­form­a­tion in ad­vert­ising ma­ter­i­al for a col­lect­ive in­vest­ment scheme;

c.²¹²

...

d.

fails to file the re­quired no­ti­fic­a­tion with FINMA, the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank or in­vestors, or provides false in­form­a­tion therein;

e.²¹³

...

f.²¹⁴

fails to keep the share re­gister in terms of Art­icle 46 para­graph 3 cor­rectly.

² ...²¹⁵

³ ...²¹⁶

⁴ ...²¹⁷