Facts
The company GIRCA filed a claim for damages and moral compensation against IBM, alleging that acts committed in Geneva between 1935 and 1945 at the Geneva branch of IBM would have constituted complicity in crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis. The Geneva courts upheld IBM's statute of limitations defense. GIRCA appealed the decision to the SCC.Considerations
The SCC dismissed the appeal. It considered that Art. 60(2) CO does not allow the application of a foreign criminal law to determine the statute of limitations, but only Swiss criminal law. However, according to Art. 75bis SCC, only acts that were not yet time-barred at the time of the entry into force of this provision in 1983 are imprescriptible. The acts alleged against IBM, which would have occurred between 1935 and 1945, were therefore already time-barred at that date and cannot benefit from the imprescriptibility.
The SCC also rejected GIRCA's arguments that this conclusion would be contrary to international law. It considered that Switzerland has…