The Italian Language as Financial Infrastructure — a part of the book Lugano as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos.
Part J is the counterpart to the Geneva volume's part on the French language. Italian is one of the three official languages of the Confederation and gives Ticino a function no other Swiss financial centre can perform.
This part belongs to Lugano as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos, published here in full, section by section.
Italian as a National and Official Language of the Confederation — overview and summary
Every federal statute that governs a bank in Lugano exists in three versions of equal authority. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureFrom subject lands to national language, 1798–1999
The legal status of Italian in Switzerland is younger than the Italian-speaking presence in the Confederation. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Federal Constitution of 1848: three national languages
The Federal Constitution of 12 September 1848 settled the question for the new federal state. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial Infrastructure1996 and 1999: the modern language article
The language article was revised again on 10 March 1996, when 76.2 per cent of the voters and all cantons approved the new text. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe constitutional framework: Articles 4, 8, 18, 70 and 175
The Federal Constitution of 1999 treats language in five provisions that belong together. Article 4 names the national languages. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureFreedom of language and the prohibition of discrimination
Article 18 guarantees that "the freedom to use any language is guaranteed", in Italian "La libertà di lingua è garantita". Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Languages Act of 2007 and the Languages Ordinance
For almost a decade after 1999 the language article of the constitution lacked an implementing statute. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureParliament, government and publications
Article 7 requires the federal authorities to use appropriate, clear and comprehensible language and to ensure gender-appropriate wording. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Languages Ordinance and its revisions
The ordinance of 2010, as revised with effect from 1 October 2014, specifies the duties of the federal administration. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureWho speaks Italian in Switzerland
The legal equality of Italian rests on a demographic minority. The Federal Statistical Office measures language through the structural survey, in which respondents may indicate more than one main… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Italian-speaking Grisons
The Italian-speaking part of the Grisons, the Grigioni italiano, comprises four valleys separated from each other by mountain ranges: Mesolcina and Calanca, which form the Moesa region and open… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureItalian in the federal administration: target values and reality
The representation of Italian speakers in the federal administration is the most measurable test of the equality of Italian. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureItalian speakers in management
The gap is widest in the senior ranks. In 2014 Italian speakers held 4.8 per cent of positions in salary classes 34 to 38, the senior management of the administration, against a minimum target of 6.5… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe revision of 2026
The amendment of the Languages Ordinance adopted in October 2025 raised the target range for Italian speakers from 6.5–8.5 per cent to 7.5–8.5 per cent from 1 January 2026. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThree authentic texts: equal authority and its consequences
The rule that the three language versions of federal enactments are equally binding is the legal core of the equality of Italian. It means that Swiss federal law has no original text. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureHow the Federal Supreme Court resolves discrepancies
Divergences between the three versions are inevitable. They arise from translation errors, from different legal traditions behind the terms of each language, from late amendments in parliamentary… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureMaking federal law in Italian
The equality of the three versions would be an empty promise without an apparatus that produces the Italian text. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureItalian in Parliament and in the federal courts
The Federal Assembly and the federal courts are the institutions in which the equality of the official languages is tested in public. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Federal Supreme Court
The Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne, with a seat for its social law divisions in Lucerne, decides in all official languages. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe other federal courts
The Federal Administrative Court in St. Gallen, the court of first instance for appeals against decisions of federal authorities, including FINMA, also decides in all official languages. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureMedia, universities and the debate about italianità
The legal status of a language depends on institutions that use it every day: broadcasters and newspapers that report in it, universities that teach and research in it, and schools that transmit it… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureUniversities and research
For most of the federal state's history, Ticino had no university. Young Ticinese who wanted an academic education had to study in the universities north of the Alps or in Italy. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Forum per l'italiano in Svizzera
The Forum per l'italiano in Svizzera was constituted on 30 November 2012 in Zurich on the initiative of the cantons of Ticino and the Grisons. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureItalian as a working language of the financial centre
For the financial centre of Lugano, the official status of Italian has a concrete commercial meaning. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe institutions of the Ticino financial centre
The institutions of the Ticino financial centre work in Italian. The Associazione Bancaria Ticinese (ABT), founded in 1920, represents the banks of the canton at cantonal level and defends the image… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Swiss variety of Italian
The Italian used in Swiss institutions is standard Italian, as Article 5 paragraph 2 of the Languages Act requires. It is nevertheless a recognizable variety. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureWhy language equality matters: legal certainty and access to justice
The equality of the official languages is sometimes discussed as a question of identity and national cohesion. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureEquality in practice: three tests
The equality of Italian can be measured by three tests that the practitioner can apply. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureBellinzona and Federal Justice in Italian — overview and summary
On 31 January 2025 the Criminal Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona convicted the Dutch parent company of the Trafigura commodity group, a former senior manager of the group, an… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureFrom the federal assizes to a court in Bellinzona
For most of its history the Swiss federal State left criminal justice to the cantons. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe efficiency bill and the reform of the judiciary
Two reforms around the turn of the century changed this structure. The first was the so-called efficiency bill ( Effizienzvorlage ), an amendment to the Swiss Criminal Code that entered into force on… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureFrom provisional premises to Viale Stefano Franscini 7
On 23 June 2003 the general project direction for the new federal courts, chaired by Heinrich Koller, Director of the Federal Office of Justice, approved Viale Franscini in Bellinzona as the location… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureOrganization, judges and caseload
The Federal Criminal Court is organized in three chambers under Articles 32 ff. StBOG. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureCaseload
The court's caseload is dominated numerically by the Board of Appeal. The Criminal Chamber receives a few dozen indictments and other cases a year, but these include the longest and most complex… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe language of federal criminal proceedings
A court that sits in Bellinzona and tries cases from all parts of Switzerland needs a rule on the language in which each case is conducted. Article 3 StBOG provides it. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe share of Italian
The court publishes the distribution of its cases by language. In 2025, 380 of the 686 cases received (55.4 per cent) were in German, 236 (34.4 per cent) in French and 70 (10.2 per cent) in Italian. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureLanguage beyond the trial
Language questions continue after the trial. A party appealing to the Federal Supreme Court must write in an official language. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureFederal jurisdiction and the Office of the Attorney General
The Federal Criminal Court can only try what the OAG may prosecute, which in turn depends on what the law assigns to federal jurisdiction. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureFederal administrative criminal law
A third group of cases reaches Bellinzona through administrative criminal law. Breaches of the financial market acts and of the reporting duties under the Anti-Money Laundering Act are prosecuted by… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureBanks in the dock: corporate liability before the Federal Criminal Court
Article 102 SCC makes an undertaking criminally liable for certain offences committed within it, including money laundering and bribery, if it failed to take all reasonable organizational measures… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureMergers and successor liability
A second question arose from the disappearance of Credit Suisse itself. In a separate case concerning loans arranged in 2013 and 2014 by London subsidiaries of Credit Suisse for Mozambican state… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureLombard Odier and the Karimova assets
The most recent major bank case was decided on 27 July 2026. The OAG had charged Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the late president of Uzbekistan, with participation in a criminal organization,… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureCommodities, sovereign funds and football: the international cases
The Trafigura judgment of 31 January 2025 described at the beginning of this chapter was the culmination of a series of foreign bribery cases involving commodity traders. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial Infrastructure1MDB, PetroSaudi and the Swiss banks
The largest financial fraud tried in Bellinzona concerned the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureFIFA: two trials and their endings
The cases arising from the football federations show the limits of criminal justice in complex international matters. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Board of Appeal and international mutual assistance
Since 2007 the Federal Criminal Court has been the principal court for international mutual assistance in criminal matters. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe political and the legal limits: the Russian requests
The limits of judicial review in mutual assistance became visible in the requests from Russia. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureSupervision, criticism and the crisis of 2020
The Federal Criminal Court is independent in its judicial activity and subject to two forms of supervision over its administration. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureParty politics and judicial independence
A further line of criticism concerns the election of federal judges. Candidates for the federal courts are in practice proposed by the political parties according to their strength in the Federal… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe other federal courts and the courts of Ticino
The Federal Criminal Court is one of four federal courts. The Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne, with its social law divisions in Lucerne, is the highest court of the country. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe Ticino judiciary: organization
The cantonal judiciary of Ticino is organized under the Law on Judicial Organization ( Legge sull'organizzazione giudiziaria, LOG). Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureItalian in arbitration
Much of the commercial litigation of a financial and trading centre never reaches the state courts. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructurePractice: when Italian makes sense
Italian is the natural language of an arbitration when the contract was drafted in Italian, when the parties and their witnesses are Italian or Ticinese and when the documentary evidence is mainly… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureWhat a federal court in Ticino means for the financial centre
The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland describes post-war Bellinzona as a city of cantonal officials and employees. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureThe defence perspective
For defence counsel the location and the language rules of the court shape strategy from the first day of an investigation. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureLanguage, Terminology and Trust: Swiss Italian and Italian Legal Language — overview and summary
A Milanese lawyer who reads a Swiss contract written in Italian recognizes every word and still misreads a good part of it. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureTwo Italian legal languages: origins and status
Legal language is the language of a legal order before it is the language of a people. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureTicino's own legal vocabulary
Federal law is only one layer. The Canton of Ticino legislates in Italian on its own organization, its courts, its taxes, its municipalities and the professions it regulates. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureA comparative table of false friends
Comparative lawyers distinguish three relationships between terms of two legal languages. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureHow to use the table
The table invites two errors. The first is to assume that the right-hand column offers a translation of the left-hand column. In most rows it offers only the nearest concept of the other legal order. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureCompany and commercial law: SA, Sagl, gerenti and procuratori
The Swiss company limited by shares is called Aktiengesellschaft in German, société anonyme in French and società anonima in Italian. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureProcura and procuratore: a classic false friend
Commercial representation produces the most dangerous false friend of company law. Swiss law distinguishes between agency in general ( rappresentanza, Art. 32 ff. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureDebt enforcement, insolvency, courts and prosecutors
Switzerland collects money debts through a federal statute that has no Italian equivalent: the Federal Act on Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy of 11 April 1889, called in Italian Legge federale sulla… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureSequestro, pignoramento and the vocabulary of seizure
Seizure has its own false friends. The Swiss sequestro (German Arrest) under Art. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureMinistero pubblico and pubblico ministero
The criminal prosecution authority of Ticino is the Ministero pubblico. It consists of a procuratore generale and twenty-two procuratori pubblici, elected by the Gran Consiglio for terms of ten… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureSecurity, property, succession and public law
Suretyship is the field in which a translation from Italian into Swiss Italian can destroy a security. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureDiritto di compera, prelazione and ricupera
Swiss property law knows three rights that can be agreed in a contract and annotated in the land register: the right of pre-emption ( diritto di prelazione ), the right to purchase ( diritto di… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureDomicilio, residenza and the vocabulary of personal status
Swiss and Italian law also define the place where a person lives in different ways. Under Art. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureTranslation risk in contracts, wills, powers of attorney and corporate documents
Translation errors in cross-border legal documents rarely result from ignorance of the language. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureWills and succession documents
Wills are especially exposed, because they are often drafted by the testator himself and interpreted after his death, when he can no longer explain them. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureCorporate documents
Corporate documents for groups with Swiss and Italian entities pose the problem of parallel terminologies within one group. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureBilingual and trilingual drafting
Multilingual documents follow one of three models. In the first, the contract is drafted in one language, which alone is binding, and translations are provided for information only. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureArticle 18 CO and the interpretation of multilingual contracts
The interpretation of contracts under Swiss law begins with Art. 18(1) CO. Its Italian text reads: "Per giudicare di un contratto, sia per la forma che per il contenuto, si deve indagare quale sia… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureUnfair terms, double signatures and the Italian reader
A Swiss contract with an Italian party may also have to satisfy Italian formal requirements if it is invoked before an Italian court. Article 1341(2) c.c. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureNotarial instruments, apostilles and translations for courts
Ticino belongs to the Latin notarial tradition, which it shares with Italy and with the French-speaking cantons. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureSwiss acts in Italy and the apostille
The Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents replaces the chain of legalizations by a single certificate, the apostille, issued by… Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureLanguage before Swiss courts
Swiss civil procedure is organized by canton. Article 129(1) of the Civil Procedure Code provides that proceedings are conducted in the official language of the canton, which in Ticino is Italian. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureLanguage in banking documentation and information duties
A private bank in Lugano opens an account with a set of documents that varies little from bank to bank. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureItalian rules for Italian clients
When a Swiss bank provides services to clients resident in Italy, Italian law may impose additional language requirements. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureItalian, English and German in Lugano's banks and law firms
The daily work of Lugano's financial centre takes place in three languages, each with its own function. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureEnglish as the language of documentation
English has become the dominant language of financial documentation in Lugano, as in all international financial centres. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureTerminology resources and a drafting checklist
The most authoritative source of Swiss Italian legal terminology is the Italian version of federal law itself, published in the Systematic Compilation ( Raccolta sistematica) on the Fedlex platform. Read more Lugano · The Italian Language as Financial InfrastructureA short glossary for cross-border documents
The following list supplements the table at the beginning of the chapter with terms that appear in banking and corporate documents. Read more