Research Results concerning Switzerland

This is a workspace to record your research results about how to verify existence of organisations and how to find out who is authorized to sign for an organisation.

Something like a status update on swiss Organisation Assurance

21th february 2009 Swiss Organisation Assurance was integrated into the european Organisation assurance thanks to PhilippDunkel from CAcert Board. No official subpolicy for Switzerland has been created because we first need to know who criterias can be clarified, modiefied and finally applied.

OpenExpo2009-CH-Bern: 3 organisations from canton of Berne have applied for organisation Assurance: 2 Middle schools and a GmbH so far. It turns out that there is a need for more clarification on what is exactly needed for the Assurance - in a way that it doesn't turn out to be too difficult to achieve it though. Please read more on the points in the sections above. :-)

April '09: In mail decision m20090401.1 (EmailBoardDecisions2008-09) the CAcert Board has accepted the first two Organisations Officers for Switzerland. They are now working on further integration - registration of trade offices and practices for Switzerland.

There is a similar page like for the Germanys' Organisation Assurance collecting the different Types of organisations (Rechtsformen)maybe we move Informations later there and leave the stories about how the reached the goals. :-) If you have better knowledge in Swiss "Obligationenrecht" don't hesitate to complete things.

Commercial companies

Every commercial company should be regstered int the Central Business Names Index which can be found here: http://zefix.admin.ch.

The Federal Commercial Registry Office also provides printed extracts from this index which are often requested too for existance proof for a company for other business usages.

The offices' address:

Federal Office of Justice
Federal Commercial Registry Office
Bundesrain 20
CH-3003 Bern

+41 (0)31 322 41 96
+41 (0)31 322 44 83
ehra@bj.admin.ch

You also have to prove who is authorized to sign for the company. (How?) Law on commercial companies are (always?) made on federal level, so things should not differ (too much) from canton to canton.

In Switzerland commercial companies can be: * Aktiengesellschaften (AG) / Société anonyme (SA) corporation * Kommanditaktiengesellschaften ~ partnership * Gesellschaften mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH) ~ limited corporation

Still more to do...

GmbH (ongoing Assurance in Berne)

For proof of existance an up-to-date extract from the ZEFIX is needed (age?). It is not clear if there is a need for a notary signature because with the registration number in ZEFIX the Organisation Assurer has the possibility to get the most up-to-date extract directoly from ZEFIX on internet himself.

The ZEFIX contains the people who are part of th GmbH and the mode of signatures how they can sign for their enterprise. Even if there is a CEO (needed by law) there maybe more than one person which has to sign a contract for the GmbH in order that it is valid.

P.Dunkel (OE) and A.Buerki (CH) agreed on OpenExpo 2009 that this should be done too on the COAP. If the people who have the right to sign, cannot be present during the assurance there are still open questions like the situation in middle schools (see more above).

Clubs ("Vereine")

Every swiss club has statutes (Statuten) in which the club defines itself. Every club should have a president which should be legible to sign for the club. The can also declare members from their club who have the rights to sign for the club.

After discussion with Orga Assurers in Switzerland there was the idea that a club without a Zefix entry may be very difficult getting verified. - Otherwise there may be the the possibility of notary services.

These informations are not verified in detail until there is a real-life case where there will be defined the rules on how OA can effectively be accomplished..

Schools and public entities

Middle school level

This type of school, which is the gap between primary school and university and are always conducted on a cantonal level and are often defined in some decrees. As always typical for swiss administration: things may vary from canton to canton. There is the Maturitätsgesetzgebung (MAG) which is the only law on swiss level defining middle schools which delegates things to the cantons.

Hint: Some cantons provide online access to their law archives.

There are experiences for such an OA, see here: OrganisationAssurance/OA/Switzerland/Cases

Other entities



Inputs & Thoughts




Category or Categories

OrganisationAssurance/OA/Switzerland/Manual (last edited 2016-08-18 07:21:57 by EtienneRuedin)