Swiss Commission on Fair Trading: Total Revision of Principles and Rules of Procedure

The Swiss Fairness Commission has completely revised its principles and rules of procedure. According to a recent press release, this was urgently needed, as the two documents no longer reflected the practice of the SLK in all parts and only insufficiently reflected today's communications industry. The new principles and the new rules of procedure are clearer, more user-friendly and more informative, and their content is up to date.

With the total revision of the principles, on the one hand, outdated guidelines or guidelines that were no longer applied in recent years were deleted. For example, those that regulated the advertising of home work or the conclusion of business transactions by means of cash on delivery without an order. On the other hand, current developments in the communications industry, which were increasingly reflected in the practice of the three chambers, were better reflected. For example, native advertising and influencing were integrated into the already existing principle of separation between editorial content and advertising.

Where appropriate, the Fair Trading Commission has also formulated new principles. On the one hand, on new phenomena in connection with commercial communication, such as ad fraud or the deceptive depiction of bodies and body shapes (body shaming); on the other hand, to track new legal provisions, as in the case of aggressive advertising for consumer loans. In addition, the SLK has specified the principle on aggressive sales and advertising methods in distance selling - unsolicited advertising in the mailbox, in the e-mail inbox or on the telephone.

• In addition to the adjustments to the content, the Fairness Commission has also structured its principles according to a new system. The previous system with two digits has been replaced by a system with letters and digits, e.g. comparative advertising: old 3.5 / new B.3. A reference table in the appendix of the document provides information on the new designations of the previous principles.
• For a better understanding, topic-related references to other sets of rules such as the UWG (Unfair Competition Act) and other statutory provisions as well as other sets of self-regulatory rules such as the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Code of Practice on Advertising and Marketing Communications are provided.
• An index in the appendix allows users to quickly and easily search for thematic references in the various sets of rules.

• The subject-matter responsibility, such as the demarcation from political, religious or charitable propaganda, is now set out in the Rules of Procedure (Art. 1, paras. 4 to 6) instead of in the Principles, as was previously the case. 
• The principle central to the SLK that the three boards of appeal must be composed on a parity basis - 1 representative each from consumers, commercial communications and the media - is clarified and strengthened with a new and modern formulation (Art. 3 Para. 1).
• The Rules of Procedure now state that the Fairness Commission only issues recommendations and not requests. Practice has shown that this has no negative impact on the recognition of the decisions of the SLK.

In the future, principles such as the Rules of Procedure will only be made available electronically to enable faster and more regular updating. As before, they can be downloaded free of charge from the website fair-advertising.ch can be downloaded under "Documentations".