Claim of the Plaintiff for Restitution of Assets from a Bank Account

Facts

A.B. (Plaintiff) is domiciled in California/USA. D. SA (Defendant) has its registered office in Geneva and operates a branch office in Zurich. On April 5, 1993, A.B. opened an account X in her name at the Defendant's branch office, in which both she and her husband A.C. were the beneficial owners. On June 14, 1996, A.C. was declared bankrupt in California. The bankruptcy trustee informed the Defendant of the bankruptcy declaration and demanded information and restitution of the bankrupt's assets. The Defendant refused this due to Swiss banking secrecy. A.B. then sued for the restitution of the assets in account X.

Considerations

The Federal Supreme Court held that the lower court had wrongly applied Art. 19 of the PILA to exempt the Defendant from its duty to restitute. The provisions of Chapter 11 of the PILA on the recognition of foreign bankruptcies and legal assistance constitute a special regulation that already adequately considers the purpose of the third-country bankruptcy regulations. Therefore, a consideration of the mandatory norm of US bankruptcy law under…