Federal Act
on the Amendment of the Swiss Civil Code
(Part Five: The Code of Obligations)

¹ A con­tract of surety for a fu­ture ob­lig­a­tion may be re­voked by the surety at any time by means of a writ­ten de­clar­a­tion to the cred­it­or, provided that the ob­lig­a­tion has not yet aris­en, where the prin­cip­al debt­or’s fin­an­cial situ­ation has sub­stan­tially de­teri­or­ated since the con­tract was con­cluded or where it sub­sequently tran­spires that his fin­an­cial situ­ation is sub­stan­tially worse than the surety had in good faith as­sumed. Con­tracts of surety for the per­form­ance of of­fi­cial and civil ser­vice ob­lig­a­tions may no longer be re­voked once the of­fi­cial or civil ser­vice re­la­tion­ship has come in­to be­ing.

² The surety is li­able to com­pensate the cred­it­or for any dam­age res­ult­ing from the fact that he re­lied in good faith on the con­tract of surety.

³ Where a con­tract of surety is con­cluded for a fixed term, the surety’s li­ab­il­ity is ex­tin­guished if the cred­it­or fails to as­sert his claim at law with­in four weeks of the ex­piry of such term and to pur­sue it without sig­ni­fic­ant in­ter­rup­tion.

⁴ Where the ob­lig­a­tion is not due at that junc­ture, the surety may ex­empt him­self from li­ab­il­ity only by fur­nish­ing real se­cur­ity.

⁵ If he fails to do so, the con­tract of surety re­mains val­id, sub­ject to the pro­vi­sion gov­ern­ing the max­im­um dur­a­tion of con­tracts of surety, as if the agreed dur­a­tion had been un­til the ob­lig­a­tion falls due.