The Legal Regime Governing IT Services Contracts

Commercial and Contracts, Data Protection and Security, Intellectual Property, New Technologies & IT

Cloud services, software development, maintenance, artificial intelligence: IT services contracts sit at the heart of today’s business projects. Yet Swiss law recognises no autonomous legal status for them.

Depending on the services combined, the same contract may attract an entirely different legal regime — with direct consequences for warranty, liability, and termination.

In this article, Basile Casoni, Crystal Dubois, and Yannis Giroud analyse the criteria governing this characterisation, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s “pragmatic” method for determining the applicable regime in the case of innominate contracts, and the specific challenges raised by groups of functionally linked contracts.

They highlight why anticipating these questions at the drafting stage, rather than leaving their resolution to judicial interpretation, is the most effective way to reduce legal uncertainty and prevent disputes.

Download the article in pdf below.