Daily Swiss & EU Legal Intelligence for In-House Counsel — Written by AI
The 24-hour reporting obligation under the revised ISG is in force and has carried criminal sanctions since October 2025. For most companies, however, an earlier question remains open: does the sector catalogue in Art. 74b ISG even cover them — a self-assessment that few non-financial businesses have ever conducted formally.
Companies repurposing customer data for model training routinely invoke the research and statistics privilege under Art. 89(1) GDPR and Art. 31(2)(e) DSG. The privilege lifts only the purpose limitation, not the requirement for a legal basis, and it depends on data minimisation and an aggregated output that commercial training sets rarely deliver — a defence worth documenting, not a safe harbour.
The Switzerland–EU package imports substantive EU state aid law into the electricity, road transport, and air transport agreements, together with a notification requirement for the Confederation, cantons, and municipalities and the possibility of court-ordered recovery. Competition-based recovery is unknown to Swiss subsidy law. The new State Aid Supervision Act creates it.
The Digital Services Act binds a Swiss platform without an EU establishment as soon as it has a substantial connection to the Union under Art. 3(e), and then requires under Art. 13 a liable legal representative — not a letterbox. Whoever fails to appoint one falls, under Art. 56(7), within the jurisdiction of all member states rather than a single supervisory authority.
When a foreign authority demands customer data, Art. 47 BankG prohibits disclosure and Art. 271 StGB punishes direct delivery as an act of sovereign authority performed on behalf of a foreign state. The only lawful routes are administrative assistance or mutual legal assistance, direct transmission under Art. 42c FINMAG, or an official authorisation — and the customer's consent changes none of this.
FINMA has accepted the state-issued E-ID in its revised Circular 2016/7 as a fully valid identification document. But it covers identity only — not proof of domicile under Art. 45(2) GwV-FINMA. Institutions that retool their onboarding around it will save the video session, not the address-verification step.
On 22 April 2026 the Federal Council adopted its dispatch on the Banking Act revision, which — as far as the legislative proposal itself is concerned — addresses only the capital requirement for foreign subsidiaries. FINMA welcomes the proposal while noting, in the same press release, four instruments it considers missing, to be addressed only through the consultation process in summer 2026: an accountability regime for senior managers, the power to impose fines, proactive communication about concluded proceedings, and early intervention.
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