Swiss Criminal Code

1. Any debt­or who in a man­ner oth­er than that in Art­icle 164 through mis­man­age­ment, in par­tic­u­lar through in­ad­equate cap­it­al pro­vi­sion, ex­cess­ive ex­pendit­ure, haz­ard­ous spec­u­la­tion, the neg­li­gent grant­ing or use of cred­it, the squan­der­ing of as­sets or gross neg­li­gence in the ex­er­cise of their pro­fes­sion or the man­age­ment of their as­sets,

causes or ag­grav­ates their ex­cess­ive in­debted­ness, causes their own in­solv­ency or, in the know­ledge that they are un­able to pay, pre­ju­dices their own fin­an­cial situ­ation,

shall be li­able, if bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings are com­menced against them or an un­paid debt cer­ti­fic­ate is is­sued in their re­spect, to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing five years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.

1^bis. If the debt­or re­ceives of­fi­cial sup­port to avert im­min­ent over-in­debted­ness or in­solv­ency, they shall be li­able to the same pen­alty.²²³

2. Any debt­or whose as­sets have been seized shall be pro­sec­uted solely on the com­plaint of a cred­it­or who has ob­tained an un­paid debt cer­ti­fic­ate against them.

The com­plaint must be filed with­in three months of re­ceipt of the un­paid debt cer­ti­fic­ate.

Any cred­it­or who has in­duced a debt­or to in­cur ir­re­spons­ible debts, un­reas­on­able ex­pendit­ure or to enter in­to haz­ard­ously spec­u­lat­ive trans­ac­tions, or who has ex­ploited the debt­or us­uri­ously, shall be barred from fil­ing a com­plaint.