Facts
Between 1983 and 1989, [A.] provided IT consulting services to the clients of B.'s sole proprietorship. This collaboration continued after the transformation of the sole proprietorship into a public limited company on June 30, 1989 and ended in 1992. On July 8, 1994, [A.] sued [B.] before the court of first instance, requesting to be remunerated for his activity between 1983 and 1989. His initial claims of CHF 261,700 were reduced to CHF 60,358.40. The court of first instance dismissed the claim in its entirety on July 26, 2001. The appeal filed by [A.] was also dismissed by the cantonal court on June 13, 2002, on the grounds that the public limited company X SA had taken over the assets and liabilities of B.'s sole proprietorship in accordance with Art. 181 CO, so that [B.] was no longer responsible for any debts of the company beyond June 1991, i.e. two years after the takeover. [A.] then appealed to the Federal Tribunal.Considerations
According to case law and the prevailing doctrine, when a public limited company takes over a sole proprietorship with its assets and liabilities, the creditor can rely on the information communicated or published by the acquiring company, without having to verify the details of the balance sheet. Thus, the claims of the former consultant [A.] are deemed to have been transferred to the public limited company, even if they were not expressly…