Contract law

A contract is an agreement between at least two parties who wish to commit themselves to a service.  

  • Have you concluded a leasing contract and received a defective vehicle?  
  • Would you like to revoke the order placed with a contractor with immediate effect?  
  • Did you discover a defect in a work you ordered? 
  • Has a private insurance company stopped paying benefits (in particular daily sickness benefits) and you would like to enforce your claims under civil law?  
  • Does the buyer refuse to pay the agreed purchase price?  

Swiss contract law does not recognize a numerus clausus of contracts. While so-called nominative contracts are explicitly regulated in the Swiss Code of Obligations (CO) in Articles 184 to 529, there are no specific legal regulations for so-called innominate contracts.  

The legally standardized nominative contracts include, in particular, the purchase contract, the gift contract, the rental contract, the employment contract, the contract for work and services, the simple order and the guarantee contract.  

Thanks to the principle of freedom of contract recognized in Swiss contract law, every person is free to decide, within the limits of the law (see Art. 19 CO), with whom and with what content they wish to conclude a contract. Consequently, contracts can also be concluded that are not explicitly provided for by the Code of Obligations. As mentioned above, these contracts are referred to as innominate contracts. Examples include leasing agreements, franchise agreements, factoring agreements and license agreements.  

Swiss contract law not only recognizes the principle of freedom of contract, but also the principle of freedom of form. Unless the law expressly requires a particular form (written form, public notarization, etc.) or the parties have agreed a particular form, a contract is informal and therefore also valid verbally. Formal requirements exist, for example, for assignment, the purchase of land and the promise to make a gift. Compliance with the statutory formal requirements is a prerequisite for the validity of the contract requiring form. Pre-contracts and subsequent amendments to contracts requiring form are also subject to the same formal requirements as the main contract.