Practice Areas

Chabrier Avocats provides a broad range of legal services in private and commercial banking, wealth management and asset management, stretching from the regulatory aspects of the financial services concerned, to the establishment of adequate management and advisory corporate structures.

We assist financial institutions and financial service providers in obtaining the necessary licenses or registrations to carry out their financial activities in or out of Switzerland. Moreover, we provide support in relation to the legal set-up of and the offering (public or by private placement) of investments funds and other similar investment vehicles. We have outstanding technical, commercial and sector expertise.

We also represent our clients before the competent courts and authorities at cantonal and federal levels in complex financial and/or regulatory disputes, frauds as well as other financial criminal matters.

Quotes

The team is very supportive, responsive and creative. They are very professional, think out of the box and strive to find pragmatic solutions. (Legal500 EMEA 2024)

OUR RECENT EXPERIENCE

• Assisting a consortium of banks on large-scale pre-export financing fraud;
• Assisting and representing holders of AT1 capital instruments and other contingent capital awards (CCA) of Credit Suisse Group before the Swiss administrative courts in the aftermath of the FINMA decision to write them down in the context of the merger with UBS;
• Assisting a major US investment bank to migrate one of its largest commodities clients to Switzerland, involving the novation of a USD 1bn set of sale and purchase, financing and security arrangements;
• Assisting several financial institutions in obtaining their FINMA license under FinIA;
• Assisting banks, brokers and/or their clients in the context of alleged or suspected unauthorized or unlawful margin calls;
• Assisting regulated banks and other financial institutions in all or part of their regulatory requirements;
• Assisting shareholders of a Swiss bank in relation to changes of qualified participations;
• Assisting a major UAE financial company setting up a bank in Switzerland and acquiring a UK financial regulated company;
• Assisting a listed Swiss company in all regulatory aspects of its activities;
• Judicial representation of a Swiss listed bank in specific judicial disputes against minority shareholders;
• Judicial representation of an international commercial bank operating in Switzerland against one of its clients in connection with a claim for damages as a result of improper financial advice;
• Assisting a Swiss portfolio manager in the context of alleged mismanagement in the aftermath of a financial crisis;
• Assisting the former board of directors of a bankrupt Swiss portfolio manager in the aftermath of a multi-million fraud committed by a former stakeholder of the company.