Ordinance
on the International Transfer of Cultural Property
(Cultural Property Transfer Ordinance, CPTO)

In this Or­din­ance:

a.

the de­scrip­tion of an item of cul­tur­al prop­erty means:

1.

the nature of an item of cul­tur­al prop­erty, the ma­ter­i­als from which it is made, its di­men­sions and/or weight, any in­scrip­tions or mark­ings there­on, and any spe­cial fea­tures (in par­tic­u­lar dam­age and re­pairs),

2.

its era or date of cre­ation, cre­at­or and its name, in­so­far as these de­tails are known or can with reas­on­able ex­pense be es­tab­lished;

b.

the ori­gin or proven­ance of an item of cul­tur­al prop­erty means the place an item of cul­tur­al prop­erty comes from or its place of man­u­fac­ture or, if it ori­gin­ates from ar­chae­olo­gic­al or pa­lae­on­to­lo­gic­al ex­cav­a­tions or dis­cov­er­ies, the place where the item of cul­tur­al prop­erty was found;

c.²

fed­er­al in­sti­tu­tionsmeans:

1.

the Swiss Na­tion­al Mu­seum and the Na­tion­al Mu­seum Zurich, the Château de Prangins, the For­um der Sch­weizer Geschichte Schwyz and the Sammlung­szen­trum Af­fol­tern am Al­bis,

2.

the Swiss Na­tion­al Lib­rary with the Swiss Lit­er­ary Archives and the Prints and Draw­ings De­part­ment, and the Centre Dür­ren­matt in Neuchâtel,

3.

the Os­kar Re­in­hart Col­lec­tion «Am Römer­holz» in Win­ter­thur,

4.

the Museo Vela in Lig­or­netto,

5.

the Seewen Mu­seum of Mu­sic Auto­matons,

6.

Fed­er­al In­sti­tute of Tech­no­logy in Zurich and its col­lec­tions,

7.

the col­lec­tion of art and cul­tur­al prop­erty held by Gottfried Keller Found­a­tion,

8.

the Swiss Fed­er­al Art Col­lec­tion;

d.

lend­ing in­sti­tu­tion means both pub­lic and private in­sti­tu­tions that lend cul­tur­al prop­erty, and private lenders;

e.

per­sons act­ive in the art trade and the auc­tion busi­ness means:

1.

nat­ur­al per­sons dom­i­ciled in Switzer­land and com­pan­ies with re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land that are re­quired to be entered in the com­mer­cial re­gister and that either ac­quire cul­tur­al prop­erty for the pur­pose of re­sale for their own ac­count or that trade in cul­tur­al prop­erty for the ac­count of oth­ers, and

2.

nat­ur­al per­sons dom­i­ciled abroad and com­pan­ies with re­gistered of­fice abroad that carry out more than ten com­mer­cial trans­ac­tions in­volving cul­tur­al prop­erty in a cal­en­dar year and thereby achieve a turnover of more than 100,000 francs and that either ac­quire cul­tur­al prop­erty for the pur­pose of re­sale for their own ac­count or that trade in cul­tur­al prop­erty for the ac­count of oth­ers;

f.

trans­fer of cul­tur­al prop­erty means a trans­ac­tion for a con­sid­er­a­tion in the art trade or in the auc­tion busi­ness that leads to a per­son be­com­ing the own­er of an item of cul­tur­al prop­erty;

g.

es­tim­ated value means the value that cor­res­ponds to the mar­ket value of an item of cul­tur­al prop­erty. The cus­tom­ary prac­tices for es­tab­lish­ing the es­tim­ated value in auc­tions are re­served;

h.

sup­pli­er means the per­son who in­structs an­oth­er per­son act­ive in the art trade and the auc­tion busi­ness to trans­fer of an item of cul­tur­al prop­erty;

i.

ex­cep­tion­al events:

1.³

armed con­flicts,

2.

nat­ur­al dis­asters,

3.

oth­er ex­cep­tion­al events that en­danger the cul­tur­al her­it­age of a state.

¹ The con­tent of can­ton­al re­gisters are not in­cluded in the Fed­er­al Re­gister. A link con­nects to the Fed­er­al Re­gister. The Fed­er­al Of­fice of Cul­ture (FOC) shall re­solve the mod­al­it­ies of con­nec­tions in con­sulta­tion with the can­tons.

² The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment shall en­sure that the au­thor­it­ies and the pub­lic can ac­cess the can­ton­al re­gisters elec­tron­ic­ally (In­ter­net) without re­stric­tion and at no charge.

³ The can­tons are re­spons­ible for the con­tent of the re­gisters.

(Art. 5 CPTA)

¹ The ap­plic­a­tion for an ex­port li­cence for cul­tur­al prop­erty re­gistered in the Fed­er­al Re­gister must be sub­mit­ted to the spe­cial­ist ser­vice, at the latest, 30 days pri­or to the in­ten­ded ex­port from Switzer­land.

² The ap­plic­a­tion must in­clude the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.

the pur­pose of the tem­por­ary ex­port;

b.

the ex­port date of the cul­tur­al prop­erty;

c.

the re­pat­ri­ation date of the cul­tur­al prop­erty.

³ The fol­low­ing must be en­closed with the ap­plic­a­tion:

a.

a de­scrip­tion of the cul­tur­al prop­erty;

b.

the Fed­er­al Re­gister in­vent­ory num­ber for the cul­tur­al prop­erty.

(Art. 5 CPTA)

No­tice of re­pat­ri­ation to Switzer­land must be giv­en with­in 30 days there­of to the spe­cial­ist ser­vice.

(Art. 6 CPTA)

¹ The spe­cial­ist ser­vice is re­spons­ible for ex­er­cising re­pat­ri­ation rights pur­su­ant to Art­icle 6 CPTA.

² It shall ini­ti­ate the ex­er­cise of re­pat­ri­ation rights for cul­tur­al prop­erty pro­tec­ted against ex­port by can­ton­al law in con­sulta­tion with the re­spons­ible can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

(Art. 8 CPTA)

Tem­por­ary meas­ures may also in­clude li­cens­ing and re­port­ing re­quire­ments.

¹ The in­sti­tu­tion bor­row­ing one or more items of cul­tur­al prop­erty must sub­mit a re­quest for the is­sue of a guar­an­tee of re­turn to the spe­cial­ist ser­vice, at the latest three months be­fore the in­ten­ded im­port of the cul­tur­al prop­erty in­to Switzer­land.

² The re­quest must in­clude the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.

name and ad­dress of the lend­ing in­sti­tu­tion;

b.

a de­scrip­tion of the cul­tur­al prop­erty;

c.

as pre­cise a de­scrip­tion as pos­sible of the cul­tur­al prop­erty’s ori­gin;

d.

the in­ten­ded date of the tem­por­ary im­port of cul­tur­al prop­erty in­to Switzer­land;

e.

the in­ten­ded date of the ex­port of the cul­tur­al prop­erty from Switzer­land;

f.

the dur­a­tion of the ex­hib­i­tion;

g.

the re­ques­ted term of the guar­an­tee of re­turn.

³ The re­quest must be sub­mit­ted in an of­fi­cial lan­guage. The in­form­a­tion spe­cified in para­graph 2 let­ters b and c must be sub­mit­ted in elec­tron­ic form. This in­form­a­tion may also be sub­mit­ted in Eng­lish.

⁴ A copy of the loan agree­ment with the lend­ing in­sti­tu­tion must be en­closed with the re­quest. The copy must in­dic­ate that the cul­tur­al prop­erty will re­turn to the con­tract­ing state from which it was bor­rowed at the com­ple­tion of the ex­hib­i­tion in Switzer­land or at the com­ple­tion of a trav­el­ling ex­hib­i­tion through mul­tiple coun­tries.

⁵ The spe­cial­ist ser­vice shall al­low the bor­row­ing in­sti­tu­tion a peri­od of 10 days to rec­ti­fy in­com­plete re­quests or re­quests without a copy of the loan agree­ment. It shall com­bine the dead­line with the warn­ing that the re­quest may be re­jec­ted without pub­lic­a­tion (Art. 11 para. 2 CPTA) if the re­quest is not rec­ti­fied with­in the dead­line or a copy of the loan agree­ment is not sub­mit­ted.

(Art. 14 CPTA)

An ap­plic­a­tion for fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for the pre­ser­va­tion of cul­tur­al her­it­age of an­oth­er coun­try must be sub­mit­ted to the spe­cial­ist ser­vice be­fore con­duct­ing the planned pro­ject.

(Art. 14 CPTA)

¹ The FOC shall de­cide on ap­plic­a­tions on fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for the tem­por­ary fi­du­ciary cus­tody and con­ser­va­tion­al su­per­vi­sion of cul­tur­al prop­erty pur­su­ant to Art­icle 1 para­graph 1 let­ter a CPTA.

² The FOC shall de­cide in con­sulta­tion with the Swiss Agency for De­vel­op­ment and Co­oper­a­tion and the Dir­ect­or­ate of Polit­ic­al Af­fairs of the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of For­eign Af­fairs on ap­plic­a­tions for fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for pro­jects pur­su­ant to Art­icle 14 para­graph 1 let­ter b CPTA, and pro­jects fa­cil­it­at­ing the resti­tu­tion of cul­tur­al her­it­age un­der Art­icle 14 para­graph 1 let­ter c CPTA.

(Art. 14 CPTA)

¹ Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance may amount to a max­im­um of 50 per cent of the costs claimed.

² Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance may only be gran­ted as part of the ap­proved cred­its.

(Art. 14 para. 1 let. a CPTA)

¹ Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance for the fi­du­ciary cus­tody and con­ser­va­tion­al su­per­vi­sion shall amount to a max­im­um of CHF 100,000 per an­num.

² Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance shall only be gran­ted to mu­seums or sim­il­ar in­sti­tu­tions that:

a.

are act­ive in a sig­ni­fic­ant and re­cog­nised man­ner in the cor­res­pond­ing spe­cialty, and

b.

con­duct their activ­ity based on the de­ont­o­lo­gic­al rules of the mu­seum pro­fes­sion, for ex­ample, the ICOM⁴ Code of Eth­ics for Mu­seums of 4 Novem­ber, 1986 (amended on 6 Ju­ly 2001 and re­vised in Oc­to­ber 2004)⁵, in par­tic­u­lar with re­gard to its pur­chas­ing and ex­hib­i­tion policies.

(Art. 14 para. 1 let. b CPTA)

¹ Pro­jects for the main­ten­ance of cul­tur­al her­it­age in an­oth­er con­tract­ing state shall be sup­por­ted with a one-time con­tri­bu­tion of a max­im­um of CHF 100 000 francs per pro­ject. The con­tri­bu­tion may be paid in in­stal­ments.

² In ex­cep­tion­al cases, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may grant a pay­ment of a max­im­um of CHF 1 mil­lion at the re­quest of the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Home Af­fairs.

(Art. 14 para. 1 let. c CPTA)

¹ Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance to fa­cil­it­ate the resti­tu­tion of cul­tur­al her­it­age of con­tract­ing states shall be gran­ted ex­clus­ively to state au­thor­it­ies and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions.

² Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance may not ex­ceed CHF 50,000.

³ Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance shall only be gran­ted if the con­tract­ing state makes a con­tri­bu­tion of its own cor­res­pond­ing to its fin­an­cial re­sources.

⁴ Fin­an­cial as­sist­ance serves to cov­er:

a.

court, leg­al, in­sur­ance, res­tor­a­tion and trans­port costs, in­so­far they are ne­ces­sary for resti­tu­tion and are ac­tu­ally in­curred;

b.

com­pens­a­tion to third parties in ex­cep­tion­al cases.

The grant­ing of fin­an­cial as­sist­ance is sub­ject to com­pli­ance with the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments:

a.

the cul­tur­al her­it­age must be pro­tec­ted in ac­cord­ance with all the rules of the pro­fes­sion;

b.

the grant re­cip­i­ent must render ac­count to the spe­cial­ist ser­vice on the use of the fin­an­cial as­sist­ance;

c.

the grant re­cip­i­ent to an­nounce that it has re­ceived sup­port from the Con­fed­er­a­tion in a suit­able and reas­on­able man­ner;

d.

items of cul­tur­al prop­erty re­ceived, re­stored or made sub­ject to resti­tu­tion with the help of fin­an­cial as­sist­ance in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 12 and 13 may not be sold.

If the re­ques­ted fin­an­cial as­sist­ance ex­ceeds the avail­able re­sources, the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Home Af­fairs shall work with the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of For­eign Af­fairs to set an or­der of pri­or­it­ies for the as­sess­ment of the ap­plic­a­tions.

¹ Art­icles 15–17 CPTA ap­ply to:

a.

fed­er­al in­sti­tu­tions;

b.

per­sons act­ive in the art trade and auc­tion­ing busi­ness to the ex­tent they trans­fer cul­tur­al prop­erty with­in Switzer­land.

² The ob­lig­a­tions pur­su­ant to Art­icles 15–17, CPTA do not ap­ply to cul­tur­al prop­erty with a sale price or es­tim­ated value on trans­ac­tions for third-party ac­counts of less than CHF 5,000.

³ The ex­cep­tion un­der para­graph 2 does not ap­ply to the trade in cul­tur­al prop­erty in the fol­low­ing cat­egor­ies:

a.

res­ults of ar­chae­olo­gic­al or pa­lae­on­to­lo­gic­al ex­cav­a­tions or dis­cov­er­ies;

b.

parts of des­troyed artist­ic or his­tor­ic­al monu­ments or of ex­cav­a­tion sites;

c.

eth­no­lo­gic­al items, spe­cific­ally those items used in sac­ral or pro­fane rituals.

(Art. 15 para. 1 and 16 para. 2 let. c CPTA)

¹ Fed­er­al in­sti­tu­tions and per­sons act­ive in the art trade or auc­tion­ing busi­ness must es­tab­lish the iden­tity of the seller or sup­pli­er based on the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.

in the case of nat­ur­al per­sons and sole pro­pri­et­ors: sur­name, first name, date of birth, home ad­dress and na­tion­al­ity;

b.

in the case of leg­al en­tit­ies and part­ner­ships: com­pany name and dom­i­cile ad­dress.

² The in­form­a­tion shall be veri­fied on the basis of pro­bat­ive doc­u­ments if there are in­dic­a­tions that the in­form­a­tion is in­cor­rect or that the re­la­tion­ship of trust es­tab­lished in pre­vi­ous trans­ac­tions must be called in­to ques­tion.

³ Es­tab­lish­ing iden­tity is not re­quired if it has been pre­vi­ously es­tab­lished.

(Art. 15 para. 1 and 16 para. 2 let. a CPTA)

The seller or sup­pli­er if ap­plic­able must sign a de­clar­a­tion con­firm­ing their right to dis­pose of the cul­tur­al prop­erty.

(Art. 15 para. 1 and 16 para. 2 let. c CPTA)

¹ Fed­er­al in­sti­tu­tions and per­sons act­ive in the art trade and in the auc­tion busi­ness must re­cord the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion and re­tain the cor­res­pond­ing doc­u­ments:

a.

a de­scrip­tion of the cul­tur­al prop­erty;

b.

the ori­gin of the cul­tur­al prop­erty, to the ex­tent known;

c.

the de­tails of iden­tity in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 17;

d.

the de­clar­a­tion of the right of dis­pos­al in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 18;

e.

the ac­tu­al trans­fer date of cul­tur­al prop­erty;

f.

the pur­chase price of the cul­tur­al prop­erty or its ap­praised value on trans­ac­tions for third-party ac­counts.

² The doc­u­ments must be stored so that they can eas­ily be made avail­able to the au­thor­it­ies with­in a reas­on­able time for any re­quests for in­form­a­tion or seizure.

(Art. 17 CPTA)

¹ The spe­cial­ist ser­vice shall give ad­vance no­tice of on-site in­spec­tions, un­less there is a risk that the cul­tur­al prop­erty or as­so­ci­ated doc­u­ments will oth­er­wise not be made avail­able for in­spec­tion.

² The spe­cial­ist ser­vice shall have ac­cess to the doc­u­ments spe­cified in Art­icle 19 dur­ing on-site in­spec­tions.

³ On-site in­spec­tions are oth­er­wise sub­ject to the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968⁶ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure.

(Art. 30 para. 2 CPTA)

¹ In or­der to carry out its tasks in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 18 let­ter i CPTA, the spe­cial­ist ser­vice may pro­cess data re­lat­ing to fed­er­al in­sti­tu­tions and per­sons act­ive in the art trade and the auc­tion busi­ness. Data pro­cessing is gov­erned by the fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion on data pro­tec­tion.

² The spe­cial­ist ser­vice shall not dis­close data in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 to third parties. The right to pass on data in con­nec­tion with ad­min­is­trat­ive and mu­tu­al leg­al as­sist­ance un­der Art­icle 21 and 22 CPTA and as part of crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings re­mains re­served.

¹ The FOC runs the spe­cial­ist ser­vice.

² ...⁷

Cus­toms as­sess­ment is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of cus­toms le­gis­la­tion.

(Art. 5 and 7 CPTA)

¹ Any per­son wish­ing to ex­port from Switzer­land cul­tur­al prop­erty that is re­cor­ded in the Fed­er­al Re­gister in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 para­graph 1 CPTA shall re­quire a li­cence from the spe­cial­ist ser­vice.

² Any per­son wish­ing to ex­port from Switzer­land cul­tur­al prop­erty re­cor­ded in a can­ton­al re­gister in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4 para­graph 1 CPTA shall re­quire a li­cence from the re­spons­ible can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies, in­so­far as a li­cence is ne­ces­sary un­der the rel­ev­ant can­ton­al pro­vi­sions.

³ Any per­son im­port­ing in­to Switzer­land cul­tur­al prop­erty that is the sub­ject of an agree­ment un­der Art­icle 7 CPTA or car­ry­ing the same in trans­it through Switzer­land must prove to the cus­toms au­thor­it­ies that the ex­port pro­vi­sions of the for­eign con­tract­ing state are ful­filled. If the for­eign con­tract­ing state re­quires a li­cence to ex­port such cul­tur­al prop­erty, the li­cence must be presen­ted to the cus­toms au­thor­it­ies.

(Art. 19 CPTA)

¹ Any per­son who im­ports, car­ries in trans­it or ex­ports cul­tur­al prop­erty must in­clude the fol­low­ing in the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion:¹¹

a.

the ob­ject type of the cul­tur­al prop­erty;

b.

as de­tailed a de­scrip­tion as pos­sible of the place of man­u­fac­ture or, for the res­ults of ar­chae­olo­gic­al or pa­lae­on­to­lo­gic­al ex­cav­a­tions or dis­cov­er­ies, the place where the cul­tur­al prop­erty was found.

² Any per­son who im­ports or car­ries in trans­it cul­tur­al prop­erty must in­dic­ate in the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion wheth­er the ex­port of the cul­tur­al prop­erty from a con­tract­ing state is sub­ject to a li­cence in ac­cord­ance with the le­gis­la­tion of that state.¹²

³ If a li­cence is re­quired un­der Art­icle 24 for the im­port, trans­it or ex­port of an item of cul­tur­al prop­erty, this li­cence must be presen­ted to the cus­toms au­thor­it­ies.

(Art. 19 para. 3 CPTA)

¹ The per­son re­quired to sub­mit a de­clar­a­tion shall no­ti­fy the cus­toms of­fice in writ­ing of the ini­tial stor­age of cul­tur­al prop­erty in an open cus­toms ware­house, in a ware­house for bulk goods or in a duty-free ware­house.¹⁴

² The no­ti­fic­a­tion must in­clude the doc­u­ments and in­form­a­tion re­quired un­der Art­icle 25.

¹ For­feited cul­tur­al prop­erty must be re­turned to its coun­try of ori­gin.

² The FOC de­cides on the re­turn. It may sus­pend the ex­e­cu­tion of the re­turn un­til the re­turn no longer poses a risk to the cul­tur­al prop­erty.

³ For­feited cul­tur­al prop­erty shall be stored in the Swiss Na­tion­al Mu­seum or in an­oth­er ap­pro­pri­ate in­sti­tu­tion un­til it is re­turned. The FOC shall de­cide on the place of stor­age.

⁴ For­feited as­sets shall be used by the FOC for:

a.

grant­ing fin­an­cial as­sist­ance un­der Art­icle 14, CPTA;

b.

cov­er­ing the costs of safe­guard­ing and re­turn­ing cul­tur­al prop­erty.

…¹⁵

This Or­din­ance comes in­to force on 1 June 2005.