Federal Act
on the Organisation of Swiss Post
(Post Organisation Act, POA)

This Act gov­erns the or­gan­isa­tion of Swiss Post and its change of leg­al form.

1 Swiss Post is a com­pany lim­ited by shares sub­ject to a spe­cial stat­utory re­gime.

2 It shall be entered in the Com­mer­cial Re­gister un­der the names «Die Sch­weizerische Post AG, La Poste Suisse SA, La Posta Svizzera SA, La Posta Sv­izra SA».

1 The ob­jects of Swiss Post are to provide the fol­low­ing ser­vices both do­mest­ic­ally and abroad:

a. Con­vey­ance of postal items and small con­sign­ments in stand­ard­ised con­tain­ers, as well as all re­lated ser­vices;

b.

The fol­low­ing fin­an­cial ser­vices:

1.

pay­ment ser­vices,

2.

ac­cept­ing cus­tom­er de­pos­its,

3.

ac­count ser­vices and oth­er re­lated ser­vices,

4.

in­vest­ments in its own name,

5.

oth­er fin­an­cial ser­vices on be­half of third parties;

c.

re­gion­al pas­sen­ger trans­port ser­vices and re­lated ser­vices.

2 It may en­gage in all leg­al trans­ac­tions which serve the ob­jects of the un­der­tak­ing, and in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

ac­quire and dis­pose of real es­tate;

b.

form com­pan­ies;

c.

take equity in­terests in com­pan­ies;

d.

bor­row and in­vest funds from and in money and cap­it­al mar­kets.

³3 It may not, however, grant loans or mort­gages to third parties. It is en­titled to con­tin­ue the loans gran­ted on the basis of Art­icle 19 of the COV­ID-19 Fin­an­cial Guar­an­tees Or­din­ance of 25 March 2020⁴ at the latest un­til they are fully re­paid in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 of the COV­ID-19 Fin­an­cial Guar­an­tees Act of 18 Decem­ber 2020⁵.⁶

4 With­in the nor­mal use of its in­fra­struc­ture, it may provide ser­vices on be­half of third parties.

Un­less this Act provides oth­er­wise, Swiss Post is sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of the Swiss Code of Ob­lig­a­tions gov­ern­ing com­pan­ies lim­ited by shares⁷.

The amount of the share cap­it­al, as well as the type, nom­in­al value and num­ber of shares shall be set out in the Art­icles of As­so­ci­ation.

The Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion is the share­hold­er of Swiss Post. It must hold a ma­jor­ity of the cap­it­al and vot­ing rights.

1 Every four years, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the stra­tegic goals that the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion aims to achieve as own­er of Swiss Post.

2 Pri­or to ad­opt­ing the stra­tegic goals, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall con­sult the com­pet­ent com­mit­tees of the Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment.

3 The Board of Dir­ect­ors shall en­sure im­ple­ment­a­tion of the stra­tegic ob­ject­ives, re­port to the Fed­er­al Coun­cil with re­gard to their at­tain­ment, and make avail­able to it such in­form­a­tion as is ne­ces­sary for the pur­pose of veri­fic­a­tion.

1 The cor­por­ate bod­ies of Swiss Post are the Gen­er­al Meet­ing of Share­hold­ers, the Board of Dir­ect­ors, and the Aud­it­ors.

2 No mem­ber of the Board of Dir­ect­ors may be­long to the ex­ec­ut­ive man­age­ment.

3 Swiss Post per­son­nel must be ap­pro­pri­ately rep­res­en­ted in the Board of Dir­ect­ors.

1 Swiss Post per­son­nel are em­ployed un­der private law.

2 Swiss Post shall con­duct ne­go­ti­ations with the staff as­so­ci­ations for the pur­pose of con­clud­ing a col­lect­ive em­ploy­ment con­tract; the ob­lig­a­tion to con­duct ne­go­ti­ations on a col­lect­ive em­ploy­ment con­tract pur­su­ant to Art­icle 4 para­graph 3 let­ter c of the Postal Ser­vices Act of 17 Decem­ber 2010⁸ is re­served.

3 In its ca­pa­city as em­ploy­er, Swiss Post shall pro­mote the di­versity and equal­ity of its em­ploy­ees, in par­tic­u­lar equal­ity for em­ploy­ees with dis­ab­il­it­ies.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall en­sure that at Swiss Post and the un­der­tak­ings it con­trols, Art­icle 6a para­graphs 1–5 of the Fed­er­al Per­son­nel Act of 24 March 2000⁹ shall ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to mem­bers of the man­age­ment bod­ies and to oth­er per­son­nel who are re­mu­ner­ated at a com­par­able level.

Swiss Post has the same tax li­ab­il­ity as com­pan­ies.

1 Swiss Post's leg­al re­la­tion­ships are gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of private law.

2 The li­ab­il­ity of Swiss Post, its cor­por­ate bod­ies and per­son­nel is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of private law. The Gov­ern­ment Li­ab­il­ity Act of 14 March 1958¹⁰ does not ap­ply.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall im­ple­ment this Act.

1 The autonom­ous in­sti­tu­tion is con­ver­ted to a com­pany lim­ited by shares sub­ject to a spe­cial stat­utory re­gime un­der the pro­vi­sions of this Act. Its leg­al re­la­tion­ships are not changed thereby.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the date of the change in leg­al form. Pri­or to the change, it shall con­sult the com­pet­ent com­mit­tee of the Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ad­opt such de­crees as are ne­ces­sary for the change of leg­al form:

a.

it shall de­cide as to the open­ing bal­ance of the com­pany lim­ited by shares;

b.

it shall se­lect the board of dir­ect­ors, ap­point its chair­per­son, and ad­opt the first art­icles of as­so­ci­ation;

c.

It shall ap­point the aud­it­ors.

3 When de­cid­ing on the open­ing bal­ance, it shall ap­prove the in­sti­tu­tion's fi­nal ac­counts and man­age­ment re­port; the in­sti­tu­tion's board of dir­ect­ors shall make a cor­res­pond­ing mo­tion.

4 When de­cid­ing on the open­ing bal­ance, it may con­vert the in­sti­tu­tion's en­dow­ment cap­it­al in­to the equity cap­it­al of the com­pany lim­ited by shares in or­der to at­tain a reas­on­able level of equity cap­it­al. The state ac­counts of the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Swiss Post bal­ance sheet shall be ad­jus­ted ac­cord­ingly.

5 The Board of Dir­ect­ors of the in­sti­tu­tion shall pre­pare for the con­ver­sion to the new leg­al form, as well as the spin-off of Post­Fin­ance and the trans­fer of Post­Fin­ance's as­sets. As of the date of the change of leg­al form, the Board of Dir­ect­ors of the com­pany lim­ited by shares shall is­sue the or­gan­isa­tion­al reg­u­la­tions and shall per­form its oth­er tasks in ac­cord­ance with the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹¹ and the art­icles of as­so­ci­ation.

6 In its ca­pa­city as em­ploy­er, the com­pany lim­ited by shares shall con­tin­ue the ex­ist­ing em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships. The pub­lic law em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships of the per­son­nel shall be con­ver­ted in­to private law em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships at the time that the new col­lect­ive em­ploy­ment con­tract takes ef­fect, or no later than two years fol­low­ing the change of leg­al form.

7 Any entries in the land re­gister, the com­mer­cial re­gister and any oth­er pub­lic re­gisters in con­nec­tion with the change of leg­al form shall be ex­empt of taxes and charges.

8 The pro­vi­sions of the Mer­gers Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003¹² ap­ply to the change of the leg­al form of the in­sti­tu­tion in­to a com­pany lim­ited by shares.

1 The unit of the Swiss Post Ltd. Group that provides pay­ment ser­vices un­der the postal ser­vice le­gis­la­tion shall be spun-off in­to a private com­pany lim­ited by shares known as Post­Fin­ance Ltd.

2 Swiss Post Ltd. is the share­hold­er of Post­Fin­ance Ltd. It must hold a ma­jor­ity of the com­pany's equity cap­it­al and vot­ing rights.

3 Ex­ist­ing con­trac­tu­al re­la­tion­ships re­lat­ing to pay­ment ser­vices shall be trans­ferred at the time of the spin-off to Post­Fin­ance Ltd.

4 In its ca­pa­city as em­ploy­er, Post­Fin­ance Ltd. shall con­tin­ue the ex­ist­ing em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships. The pub­lic-law em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships shall be con­ver­ted in­to private-law em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships at the time of the spin-off of Post­Fin­ance, or no later than two years there­after.

5 Any entries in the land re­gister, the com­mer­cial re­gister, and any oth­er pub­lic re­gisters in con­nec­tion with the de­con­sol­id­a­tion and the trans­fer of as­sets shall be ex­empt of taxes and charges.

6 The pro­vi­sions of the Mer­gers Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003¹³ ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to the spin-off of Post­Fin­ance and the trans­fer of as­sets; the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­clare in­di­vidu­al pro­vi­sions as not ap­plic­able.

7 The spin-off re­quires the ap­prov­al of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

1 The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of the En­vir­on­ment, Trans­port, En­ergy and Com­mu­nic­a­tions may:

a.

cor­rect al­loc­a­tions of im­mov­able prop­erty and rights in rem on the basis of Art­icle 20 para­graph 2 let­ter b of the Postal Ser­vices Or­gan­isa­tion Act of 30 April 1997¹⁴ un­til the end of 2013;

b.

cor­rect re­gister entries which were made on the basis of Art­icle 13 para­graph 7 as well as Art­icle 14 para­graph 5 for a peri­od of five years fol­low­ing the com­mence­ment of this Act, by de­cree, free of taxes and charges.

2 Com­plaints made by per­son­nel filed pri­or to the com­mence­ment of this Act are ad­ju­dic­ated un­der the pre­vi­ous law.

3 Where Post­Fin­ance Ltd.'s own fin­an­cial re­sources and those of Swiss Post Ltd. are in­suf­fi­cient, the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion is li­able:

a.

for cus­tom­er de­pos­its up to CHF 100,000 per cred­it­or for a peri­od of 5 years fol­low­ing the com­mence­ment of this Act;

b.

for bonds still out­stand­ing after the ex­piry of the five-year peri­od un­til their ma­tur­ity date;

c.

for all re­main­ing ob­lig­a­tions un­til their fi­nal ma­tur­ity date or for the dur­a­tion of the ter­min­a­tion no­tice peri­od, but no later than 5 years fol­low­ing the com­mence­ment of this Act.

4 Swiss Post Ltd. and Post­Fin­ance Ltd. are au­thor­ised for a peri­od of three years fol­low­ing the com­mence­ment of this Act and on be­com­ing li­able to pay tax to val­or­ise any ex­ist­ing hid­den re­serves in a tax-neut­ral man­ner.

The re­peal and amend­ment of the laws cur­rently in force are gov­erned by the An­nex.

1 This Act is sub­ject to op­tion­al Ref­er­en­dum.

2 It comes in­to force to­geth­er with the Postal Ser­vices Act of 17 Decem­ber 2010¹⁵. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may bring cer­tain pro­vi­sions in­to force at an earli­er date where ne­ces­sary for the change of leg­al form.

Com­mence­ment date: 1 Oc­to­ber 2012¹⁶