Civil Procedure: Reduction of Cost Barriers for Private Parties and Companies

Today, in some cases high advance payments for legal costs prevent claims from being asserted through the courts. The Federal Council wants to reduce this de facto barrier to access to the courts. It is therefore proposing to halve the advance payments for legal costs. In future, this should enable people who do not benefit from free legal services to actually assert their claims in court.

In addition, the liquidation of court costs is to be newly regulated. Today, the winning plaintiff can only reclaim advance payments of costs from the opposing party. If the other party is insolvent, the plaintiff must pay the court costs himself despite having won the case. In the future, this risk is to be eliminated: For the court costs, the court is now to deal exclusively with the losing party. With these two adjustments, the Federal Council is taking account of widespread criticism of the law on costs.

In contrast, it does not want to interfere with cantonal tariff sovereignty. In the view of the Federal Council, this is a matter for the cantons.

Collective legal protection: closing the gap

If a large number of people have suffered the same or similar damage, under current law each person must in principle assert their legal claims individually in court. For this reason, injured parties often forego court proceedings. The Federal Council now wants to close this gap in legal protection, which has been criticized for some time.

Companies should now be able to reach an amicable collective settlement of disputes with effect for all injured parties by means of a so-called group settlement procedure. Furthermore, it proposes to allow representative actions for the collective enforcement of financial claims. These measures allow companies to settle claims arising from so-called mass torts in a single proceeding with a representative plaintiff. This settlement of unlawful profits also eliminates disruptive distortions of competition vis-à-vis companies that behave in a legally compliant manner.

Further selective adjustments

In its consultation draft (cf. explanatory report), the Federal Council proposes further selective adjustments to the CCP. In particular, procedural coordination is to be simplified, which will also facilitate the collective enforcement of rights. In addition, the arbitration procedure, which has proved very successful in recent years, is to be further strengthened. Specifically, the Federal Council also wants to make the handling of submissions to a court without jurisdiction or to an incorrect authority more application-friendly, to create a right of refusal to cooperate for in-house counsel and a legal basis for the compilation of Switzerland-wide statistics and business figures for civil jurisdiction.

With these proposals, the Federal Council aims to selectively adapt and further develop the Code of Civil Procedure, which has proven its worth in practice since its entry into force, thereby facilitating access to court and further improving the enforcement of private law.

Press release Bundesrat