Asset class
Collectible assets in Switzerland
Switzerland does not decide, by itself, whether a metals, wine, watch or car position can be recovered. What decides it is the record layer sitting under the contract: a custody statement, a warehouse receipt, a vehicle registration entry, or the absence of any of these. Swiss contract law governs the agreement. It does not create a paper trail that was never made in the first place.
Register and custody layer
Tangible collectibles do not sit on one type of register. A car may appear on a cantonal vehicle registration; a watch, a wine case or a bar of metal usually appears on no public register at all. For those, the working record is contractual: a custody or warehouse statement naming the specific units held for a specific investor. Where that statement was pooled, generic, or never issued, there is no register to fall back on, and the case turns on whatever documents exist outside a public system. A class-wide view of how these four asset types are typically documented, or fail to be, is set out in the asset overview for metals, wine, watches and cars.
The document rarely handed over
The document an investor rarely receives is the segregated custody or allocation statement: a record tying named serial numbers, vintages, or vehicle identification numbers to that investor alone, independent of the seller. Without it, the position may exist only as a claim against the operator, not as identified property. That distinction decides whether the asset can be traced if the operator becomes insolvent or simply stops responding. A separate piece on how ownership of collectible assets is actually recorded sets out what a genuine segregation record looks like against what is usually offered instead.
What belongs in a pre-deal report
A pre-deal report checks documents, not impressions. It confirms:
- the agreement identifies specific units, not a pooled position
- a custody or storage statement exists and names the investor directly
- any foreign-issued ownership or storage document carries the legalization Switzerland requires for use there — in force since 11 March 1973, subject to a declared reservation [N404]
- insurance, if claimed, is evidenced against the specific holding
- correspondence on a missed delivery or redemption is kept in full, not summarized
Where enforcement against a Swiss-based operator becomes relevant, the starting reference is enforcement routes into Switzerland. Where the dispute is specifically about delivery or refund, that runs through a separate mechanism, addressed on its own terms. A paid initial assessment applies this list to the actual file before anything is sent to the counterparty, and states plainly which items are missing and which cannot be fixed after the fact.