Licensing, supervision and cross-border distribution counsel for portfolio managers, trustees, fund managers and family offices in Switzerland, the EU and the UK.
Since the Financial Institutions Act took effect on 1 January 2020, Swiss portfolio managers and trustees acting on a commercial basis have required a FINMA licence and continuous supervision, carried out by a supervisory organisation with FINMA behind it. The transitional deadlines have passed and the great majority of applications have been decided, so the work has moved from obtaining the licence to operating under it: own funds and capital that must hold as the business changes, a compliance and risk function sized to the firm, the product-governance expectations FINMA set out in its guidance of June 2026 on product risks in individual portfolio management, and supervisory findings that can move from the organisation to FINMA.
Cross-border business is the second axis. An eligible, FINMA-authorised Swiss manager can serve UK clients under the Berne Financial Services Agreement, in force since 1 January 2026, once it has been notified and entered on the FCA's register, and for per se professional clients, eligible counterparties and qualifying high-net-worth clients only; EU clients are served under each member state's third-country rules or on genuine, documented reverse solicitation. In the other direction, foreign providers reaching Swiss private clients register their client advisers under FinSA (advisers of prudentially supervised foreign firms serving only professional and institutional clients are exempt, and the Berne Agreement relieves eligible UK firms), and a foreign fund offered to non-qualified investors needs FINMA approval and a Swiss representative and paying agent under the Collective Investment Schemes Act, with the representative and paying agent also required where it is offered to high-net-worth clients who have opted out of retail protection. Non-EU managers marketing funds into the EU work under AIFMD II, Directive (EU) 2024/927, applicable from 16 April 2026 (reporting changes from April 2027) with national transposition still uneven, and under the national private placement regimes beneath it; into the UK, the national private placement regime applies.
Family offices sit at the edge of the regime. The Act exempts persons who manage assets only for persons with whom they have business or family ties (Art. 2(2)(a) FinIA), both defined narrowly in the ordinance: companies of the same group, and relatives within set degrees together with the structures they control. A structure that charges fees to outsiders, serves a second family or takes on clients beyond those circles can cross into licensing. We answer the perimeter question at the design stage, document the answer for the file, and revisit it when the structure changes.
Family offices also bring transactional and governance work, which is advice to the investor or owner and distinct from advice to a manager on its licence: the acquisition or co-investment, the shareholder arrangement, the holding structure for the family's assets and, for a collection, the purchase, financing and storage of works. We handle that work with our Corporate and Art Law practices. We do not manage assets or recommend investments.
One manager, three regulatory axes. Jurisdictions: Switzerland, EU, United Kingdom.