Facts
R.S. and A.S. married in Basel in 1983 and moved to France in 1989. In 2000, their marriage was dissolved by the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Mulhouse. The divorce judgment regulated the matters concerning the children and maintenance payments, but did not contain any provisions regarding the division of R.S.'s vested termination benefit from his Swiss pension fund. A.S. subsequently filed a claim in Switzerland to supplement the French divorce judgment with respect to this termination benefit.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court decided that the division of the termination benefit should be assessed according to Swiss law, as the husband's pension fund assets were of a predominant pension-related nature for the parties. Although the parties had lived in France for several years, the close connection of the facts to Switzerland prevailed, as R.S. had fulfilled his pension obligations here.
The Federal Supreme Court further stated that the French "prestation compensatoire" and the Swiss pension equalization are different legal institutions with divergent objectives and structures. Since the French divorce…