Zurich to house international commercial court

Zurich is to be home to an international commercial court Keystone-SDA

Zurich is to have an international commercial court after the cantonal council voted in favour of the proposal.

The Swiss canton had already sought to introduce such a court six years ago.

The Swiss People’s Party did not wish to consider the motion, but the parliament rejected this by 122 votes to 45. The motion will now go to the drafting committee. Given the clear margin in favour the final vote in a few weeks’ time should be a mere formality.

Although the leftwing parties expressed specific concerns, they generally spoke in favour of the proposal. Several speakers noted that it made sense for proceedings to be conducted in English.

With the International Commercial Court, Zurich as a business centre is following an international trend. Other countries, such as Germany, France, England and the Netherlands, also have dedicated court divisions for globalised commercial cases.

The new Zurich court is to form part of the Commercial Court, which is based at the High Court. This will allow the existing structures and the specialist knowledge of the commercial judges to be utilised.

No additional staff are to be hired for this purpose, as the number of cases is expected to be low initially. The canton anticipates a figure “in the low single figures”. Any subsequent additional costs, should the number of cases rise at some point, would be fully covered by court fees.

As early as 2019, the cantonal parliament had called for such a court division. At that time, however, this was not yet legally possible.

The federal government first had to amend the Code of Civil Procedure. These amendments have now come into force in January 2025. Since then, the cantons have been able to designate their commercial courts as the competent authority for international disputes.

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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.