Asset class

Fund structures in Switzerland

Swiss fund vehicles hold assets through a management company and a separate custodian bank, with unit or share entries recorded in the fund's register rather than in the investor's own name. When a redemption or payment is refused, the claim runs against the fund entity and its register entry, not against the underlying portfolio directly. The authority competent to hear such a claim depends on the vehicle's form and is not fixed in advance.

Register and custody layer

The register that records who holds units or shares is not the fund's marketing ledger. It is kept by the fund management company or, for some vehicles, by the custodian bank acting as depositary. This register decides who is entitled to a redemption payment and in what order competing instructions are treated. A dispute over a stalled redemption is, underneath the correspondence, a dispute about what this register showed on the relevant date. Investors who ask for a statement often receive a summary produced for reporting purposes, not the register extract itself. That distinction matters once a claim moves toward a formal proceeding, because fund structures across jurisdictions raise the same first question: who is actually recorded, and against whom the claim runs.

The document rarely handed over

The document investors are least likely to see is the custody agreement between the fund and its depositary bank, or the actual instruction that triggered, or blocked, a redemption. What arrives instead is a NAV statement or a letter citing liquidity constraints. Neither shows whether the redemption instruction was received, accepted, or queued behind other requests. Establishing that sequence usually requires the custody records themselves, not a summary of them. Where those records originate outside Switzerland or need to be used in a foreign proceeding, legalization requirements apply. Switzerland is party to the Apostille Convention, in force since 11 March 1973, with a stated reservation on its scope.

What belongs in a pre-deal report

A pre-deal or pre-litigation report on a Swiss fund holding should confirm, at minimum, the following:

• the legal form of the vehicle and who acts as management company and custodian
• whether the investor's position sits in a named unit register or only in an omnibus account held by an intermediary
• the redemption instruction actually sent, with proof of receipt by the fund or its transfer agent
• whether any document relied on for a foreign proceeding needs an apostille under the Convention in force for Switzerland since 1973
• the sequence of correspondence citing gates, suspensions, or side pockets, matched against register entries for the same period

This is the set of facts a paid initial assessment is built to establish before any letter goes out.