Any conduct or business practice that is misleading or which otherwise violates the principle of good faith such that it influences the relationship between competitors or between suppliers and customers is unfair and unlawful.

¹ A person acts unfairly if they:

a.

disparage others, their goods, work, services, prices or their business relationships by making incorrect, misleading or unnecessarily harmful statements;

b.⁴

provide incorrect or misleading information about themselves, their business, their business name, their goods, works or services, their prices, their volume in stock, the nature of the sales transaction or about their business relationships or benefit third parties in competition through such conduct;

c.

use incorrect titles or professional designations that are likely to give the impression that they hold special qualifications or skills;

d.

take measures that are likely to cause confusion with the goods, works, services or the business operations of others;

e.

compare themselves, their goods, works, services or their prices in an incorrect, misleading, unnecessarily disparaging or plagiaristic way with others, their goods, works, services or prices or benefit third parties in competition through such conduct;

f.

repeatedly offer selected goods, works or services at below the cost price, give special emphasis to these offers in advertising and thus deceive the customer as to their own or their competitors' performance; deception is presumed if the sale price is less than the cost price of comparable purchases of similar goods, works or services; if the defendant proves the actual cost price, this price is decisive in the assessment;

g.

deceive the customer as to the actual value of the offer by adding premiums;

h.

adversely affect the customer's freedom to decide by using particularly aggressive sales methods;

i.

conceal the condition, quantity, purpose, use or dangerousness of goods, works or services and thereby deceive the customer;

k.⁵

fail to state their business name clearly in public statements about consumer credit or fail to indicate clearly the net amount of the credit or the overall costs of the credit and the effective annual interest rate;

l.⁶

fail to state their business name clearly in public statements about consumer credit to pay for goods or services or fail to indicate clearly the cash price, the price to be paid under the credit agreement, and the effective annual interest rate;

m.⁷

offer or conclude a consumer credit agreement in the course of a business activity and in doing so use contract forms that contain incomplete or incorrect information about the subject matter of the contract, the price, the payment terms, the duration of the contract, the customer's right to withdraw from or terminate the contract or the customer's right to make early repayment of the outstanding debt;

n.⁸

fail to state in public statements about consumer credit (let. k) or consumer credit to pay for goods or services (let. l) that the granting of credit is prohibited if it leads to the consumer's overindebtedness;

o.⁹

send or arrange to be sent mass advertising without direct connection with any requested content by telecommunication and in doing so fail to obtain the prior consent of the customer, or to indicate the correct sender or a simple and free of charge option of refusal; any person who receives contact details of a customer when selling goods, works or services, and who indicates the option of refusal when doing so, does not act unfairly if they send that same customer mass advertising for their own similar goods, works or services without the customer's consent;

p.¹⁰

solicit entries in directories of any nature using offer forms, correction proposals or similar or solicit advertising orders or offer such entries or advertising orders directly without indicating the following in large print, in a prominent place and in understandable language:

1.

that the offer is private in character and subject to a charge,

2.

the duration of the contract,

3.

the total price for that duration, and

4.

the geographical spread, form, minimum print run and the latest date of publication;

q.¹¹

send invoices for entries in directories of any nature or for advertising orders, without being given a corresponding order beforehand;

r.¹²

promise to supply goods, pay bonuses or provide other services on conditions that are advantageous to the recipient primarily if the recipient recruits other persons and less if the recipient sells or makes use of the goods or services (snowball, avalanche or pyramid schemes);

s.¹³

offer goods, works or services online and in doing so fail:

1.

to provide clear and complete details of their identity and their contact address including their email address,

2.

to indicate the individual technical steps that lead to a contract being concluded,

3.

to provide suitable technical means for identifying and correcting input errors before submitting the order,

4.

to provide immediate online confirmation of the customer's order;

t.¹⁴

promise a prize as part of a competition or a prize draw the redemption of which is conditional on the use of a chargeable value-added service number, the payment of compensation for expenses, the purchase of a good or service or participation in a sales event, promotional trip or a further prize draw

u.¹⁵

fail to observe a note in the telephone directory that a customer does not wish to receive advertising from persons with whom they have no business relationship and that their data may not be passed on for the purposes of direct advertising; customers without a directory entry shall be treated in the same way as customers with a directory entry and note;

v.¹⁶

make advertising calls without displaying a telephone number which is entered in the telephone directory and which they are entitled to use;

w.¹⁷

make use of information that has come to their knowledge as a result of an infringement of letter u or v.

² Paragraph 1 letter s does not apply to voice telephony and to contracts concluded exclusively by the exchange of electronic mail or by comparable individual communication.¹⁸

¹ A person acts unfairly towards a customer in Switzerland in particular if, in long-distance trading, without objective justification, on the basis of the customer's nationality, place of residence, place of establishment, the registered office of the customer's payment service provider or the place of issue of the customer's means of payment:

a.

they discriminate in relation to the price or terms of payment;

b.

they block or restrict the customer's access to an online portal; or

c.

they redirect the customer to a version of the online portal other than the one originally visited without the customer's consent.

² This provision does not apply to non-economic services of general interest; financial services; electronic communication services; public transport services; services provided by temporary employment agencies; healthcare services; games of chance that require a monetary stake, including lotteries, games of chance in casinos and betting; private security services; social services of any nature; services connected with the exercise of official authority; activities of notaries and court officers appointed by public authorities; audio-visual services.

A person acts unfairly in particular if they:

a.

induce a customer to breach a contract in order to enter into a contract with that customer;

b.²⁰

…

c.

induce employees, agents or other auxiliary personnel to betray or find out manufacturing or trade secrets belonging to their employer or client;

d.²¹

induce a consumer who has entered into a consumer credit agreement to cancel the agreement in order to enter into an agreement with that consumer.

¹ A person acts unfairly if they:

a.

offer, promise or grant an undue advantage to an employee, a company member, an agent or another auxiliary person of a third party in the private sector in connection with the latter's official or business activity in return for an act or omission in breach of the latter's duty or subject to their discretion for the former's benefit or for the benefit of a third party;

b.²³

as an employee, a company member, an agent or another auxiliary person of a third party in the private sector solicit the offer or promise of or accept an undue advantage in connection with their official or business activity in return for an act or omission in breach of their duty or subject to their discretion for their own benefit or for the benefit of a third party.

² Advantages contractually approved by the third party and minor, socially customary advantages are not undue advantages.

A person acts unfairly in particular if they:

a.

exploit a work product entrusted to them, such as an offer, calculation or plan, without authorisation;

b.

exploit a third party's work product, such as an offer, calculation or plan, even though they must know that it was given or made accessible to them without authorisation;

c.

take over and exploit another person's work product that is ready for the market by means of technical reproduction processes without any reasonable effort of their own.

A person acts unfairly in particular if they exploit or disclose to others manufacturing or trade secrets that they have found out or otherwise unlawfully obtained.

A person acts unfairly in particular if they do not comply with conditions of employment that also apply to competitors by legal rule or agreement, or which are customary in the profession or location concerned.

A person acts unfairly in particular if they use general terms and conditions of business that provide for a considerable and unjustified imbalance between contractual rights and contractual obligations to the prejudice of consumers in a manner that is in breach of good faith.

A person acts unfairly in particular if, as the operator of an online platform for booking accommodation services, they apply general terms and conditions of business that restrict, directly or indirectly, the ability of accommodation businesses to fix prices and make offers by means of parity clauses, in particular in relation to prices, availability or conditions.

¹ Any person who is threatened with or sustains damage to their customer base, their credit or professional reputation, their business operations or otherwise to their economic interests as a result of unfair competition may request the court:

a.

to prohibit imminent damage;

b.

to redress existing damage;

c.

to determine the illegality of the damage if this is continuing to have a disruptive effect.

² They may in particular request that notice of any correction or the judgment be given to third parties or be published.

³ They may also bring an action pursuant to the Code of Obligations²⁸ for damages and satisfaction and for delivery of profits in accordance with the provisions on agency without authority.

¹ The actions under Article 9 are also available to customers whose economic interests are threatened or damaged by unfair competition.

² In addition, the following entities may bring actions under Article 9 paragraphs 1 and 2:

a.

professional and trade associations which are authorised under their articles to safeguard the economic interests of their members;

b.

organisations of national or regional importance which, in accordance with their articles, are dedicated to consumer protection;

c.³⁰

...

³ The Confederation may also bring actions under Article 9 paragraphs 1 and 2 if it regards it as necessary in order to protect the public interest, and in particular if:

a.

Switzerland's reputation abroad is threatened or damaged and the persons whose economic interests are affected are based abroad; or

b.

the interests of several persons or of a group of members of an industry or other collective interests are threatened or damaged.³¹

⁴ Where required in order to protect the public interest, the Federal Council shall inform the public about unfair practices, and name the businesses concerned. Where there is no longer a public interest, the publications concerned shall be deleted.³²

⁵ In the case of actions by the Confederation, the application of this Act is mandatory in accordance with Article 18 of the Federal Act of 18 December 1987³³ on Private International Law.³⁴

If employees or other auxiliary persons compete unfairly in the course of their official or business activities, an action under Article 9 paragraphs 1 and 2 may also be brought against their employers.

¹ The court may require an advertiser to prove that claims in their advertising are accurate if this appears appropriate having taken account of the legitimate interests of the advertiser and of the other parties to the proceedings.

² ...³⁷