Ordinance
on Protection against Major Accidents
(Major Accidents Ordinance, MAO)

¹ The pur­pose of this Or­din­ance is to pro­tect the pub­lic and the en­vir­on­ment against ser­i­ous harm or dam­age res­ult­ing from ma­jor ac­ci­dents.

² It ap­plies to:

a.⁴

es­tab­lish­ments where the threshold quant­it­ies for sub­stances, pre­par­a­tions or spe­cial wastes spe­cified in An­nex 1.1 are ex­ceeded;

b.⁵

es­tab­lish­ments where an activ­ity in­volving ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied or patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms or ali­en mi­croor­gan­isms sub­ject to com­puls­ory con­tain­ment is car­ried out which is to be as­signed to Class 3 or Class 4 in ac­cord­ance with the Con­tain­ment Or­din­ance of 9 May 2012⁶;

c.⁷

rail­way in­stall­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 1.2a;

d.

trans­it roads, as defined in the Or­din­ance of 6 June 1983⁸ on Trans­it Roads, where dan­ger­ous goods are trans­por­ted or tran­shipped in ac­cord­ance with the Or­din­ance of 17 April 1985⁹ on the Car­riage of Dan­ger­ous Goods by Road (SDR) or the rel­ev­ant in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments;

e.

the Rhine, where dan­ger­ous goods are trans­por­ted or tran­shipped in ac­cord­ance with the Or­din­ance of 29 April 1970¹⁰ on the Car­riage of Dan­ger­ous Goods on the Rhine (AD­NR);

f.¹¹

pipeline in­stall­a­tions as defined in the Pipelines Or­din­ance of 26 June 2019¹² which meet the cri­ter­ia spe­cified in An­nex 1.3.

^2bis The en­force­ment au­thor­ity may ex­empt es­tab­lish­ments un­der para­graph 2 let­ter b from the scope of this Or­din­ance that:

a.

only carry out Class 3 activ­it­ies with or­gan­isms in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 1.4 which, due to their prop­er­ties, can­not spread un­con­trol­lably among the pub­lic and in the en­vir­on­ment; and

b.

due to their haz­ard po­ten­tial, can­not ser­i­ously harm the pub­lic or the en­vir­on­ment.¹³

³ In in­di­vidu­al cases, the en­force­ment au­thor­ity may make the fol­low­ing es­tab­lish­ments, trans­port routes or pipeline in­stall­a­tions sub­ject to this Or­din­ance if, on ac­count of their haz­ard po­ten­tial, they could cause ser­i­ous harm to the pub­lic or dam­age to the en­vir­on­ment:¹⁴

a.¹⁵

es­tab­lish­ments hand­ling sub­stances, pre­par­a­tions or spe­cial wastes;

b.¹⁶

es­tab­lish­ments where an activ­ity in­volving ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied or patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms or ali­en mi­croor­gan­isms sub­ject to com­puls­ory con­tain­ment is car­ried out which is to be as­signed to Class 2 in ac­cord­ance with the Con­tain­ment Or­din­ance, in con­sulta­tion with the Swiss Ex­pert Com­mit­tee for Biosafety;

c.

trans­port routes out­side es­tab­lish­ments, where dan­ger­ous goods are trans­por­ted or tran­shipped in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2;

d.¹⁷

pipeline in­stall­a­tions as defined in the Pipelines Or­din­ance which do not meet the cri­ter­ia spe­cified in An­nex 1.3.¹⁸

⁴ This Or­din­ance does not ap­ply to in­stall­a­tions and forms of trans­port which are sub­ject to le­gis­la­tion on nuc­le­ar en­ergy and ra­di­olo­gic­al pro­tec­tion, in­so­far as the as­so­ci­ated ra­di­ation could cause harm to the pub­lic or dam­age to the en­vir­on­ment.¹⁹

⁵ The pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 10 EPA are dir­ectly ap­plic­able to es­tab­lish­ments or trans­port routes which, in the case of ex­cep­tion­al events, could cause ser­i­ous harm to the pub­lic or dam­age to the en­vir­on­ment not arising from sub­stances, pre­par­a­tions, spe­cial wastes or dan­ger­ous goods, or from ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied or patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms or ali­en or­gan­isms sub­ject to com­puls­ory con­tain­ment.²⁰