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

¹ Where the li­ens and oth­er se­cur­it­ies and pref­er­en­tial rights fur­nished when the con­tract of surety is con­cluded or sub­sequently ob­tained from the prin­cip­al debt­or for the spe­cif­ic pur­pose of se­cur­ing the claim un­der surety are re­duced by the cred­it­or to the det­ri­ment of the surety, the lat­ter’s li­ab­il­ity is de­creased by an equal amount un­less it can be proven that the dam­age is less. Claims for resti­tu­tion of the over-paid amount are un­af­fected.

² Moreover, in the case of con­tracts of surety for the per­form­ance of of­fi­cial and civil ser­vice ob­lig­a­tions, the cred­it­or is li­able to the surety if, as a res­ult of his fail­ure to su­per­vise the em­ploy­ee as re­quired or to act with the di­li­gence that could reas­on­ably be ex­pec­ted of him, the ob­lig­a­tion arose or in­creased to an ex­tent that it would not have oth­er­wise reached.²⁷⁶

³ On be­ing sat­is­fied by the surety, the cred­it­or is re­quired to fur­nish him with such doc­u­ments and in­form­a­tion as are re­quired to ex­er­cise his rights. The cred­it­or must also re­lease to him the li­ens and oth­er se­cur­it­ies fur­nished when the con­tract of surety was con­cluded or sub­sequently ob­tained from the prin­cip­al debt­or for the spe­cif­ic pur­pose of se­cur­ing the claim un­der surety or must take the re­quis­ite meas­ures to fa­cil­it­ate their trans­fer. This does not ap­ply to li­ens and rights of pledge held by the cred­it­or in re­la­tion to oth­er claims where they take pre­ced­ence over those of the surety.

⁴ Where the cred­it­or re­fuses without just cause to take such meas­ures or has ali­en­ated the avail­able evid­ence or the pledges and oth­er se­cur­it­ies for which he is re­spons­ible in bad faith or through gross neg­li­gence, the surety is re­leased from his li­ab­il­ity. He may de­mand the re­turn of sums already paid and seek com­pens­a­tion for any fur­ther dam­age in­curred.