Legal scholarship and the professional associations

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The vitality of a professional language is measured by what is written and discussed in that language. Swiss banking and financial law has a body of scholarship in French, produced by the universities of French-speaking Switzerland, by law firms and by practitioners, and published in legal journals, commentaries and collections of case law. It remains less abundant than the scholarship in German, an imbalance that becomes more pronounced in new fields, such as the regulation of crypto assets and digital assets or sustainable finance, where the first analyses often appear in German or in English.¹ The Geneva professional associations, in law, wealth management, compliance, taxation and commodity trading, organise conferences and training courses in French that sustain this scholarship and create a community of practice.

These publications and gatherings have a function that institutions sometimes underestimate: they fix terminology, disseminate good practice and train the next generation. A Geneva practitioner who publishes in French an analysis of the Financial Institutions Act or of the transparency of legal entities renders a service to the whole financial centre, and to colleagues across the French-speaking world who refer to it. Support for legal scholarship in French, by the universities, the umbrella organisations and the institutions, is one of the least costly and most durable measures for maintaining the linguistic asset.

Notes

Wikipédia (fr), article “Commentaire romand”: a series of commentaries on the principal federal statutes published by Helbing Lichtenhahn since the early 2000s, each volume running to some 2,000 pages, “the only one written in French” among the major Swiss commentaries; article “Commentaire bâlois”: the equivalent series from the same publisher, of comparable size, edited by professors and practitioners. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Rechtsanwalt/Attorney-at-Law

I am a Swiss attorney-at-law and also admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong and in England & Wales, with almost 25 years of experience.

Together with my multilingual team, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and French native speakers, I advise companies and their owners from around the world on the full range of banking, corporate, commercial and tax law matters in Switzerland, including international tax planning, fiduciary services, and legal family office services including immigration & relocation or real estate investments. My practice has a particular focus on clients from growth and frontier markets in Greater China, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and I equally advise clients from Europe and North America. Through an affiliated Swiss trust company, we also take care of the incorporation and ongoing administration of their companies and other structures, including accounting, tax returns and corporate secretarial services, and I serve as a professional director where required. With the support of a network of first-class cooperation partners, I also implement solutions worldwide.

My approach is to act as a trusted advisor who works directly with decision-makers, on an equal footing: I start from what you want to achieve and shape every structure, contract and tax decision around your commercial goals and how it improves your after-tax return. As “lawyers who make it happen”, my team and I stay involved until your company is set up, your structure is in place and your transaction has closed, and we remain available for any follow-on work that may be required. You benefit from bespoke solutions and personal attention, and sound, friendly and practical advice. We are not the lowest-cost provider in the market, nor do we intend to be; our aim is to deliver well-founded, proper solutions and excellent value for money.

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Legal scholarship and the professional associations

Notes

Setting up or expanding in Switzerland?