Our new Trilingual Swiss Law Dictionary
Intermark Language Publications is pleased to announce the release of our new Trilingual Swiss Law Dictionary by Thomas West. This is the first trilingual dictionary focused solely on Swiss legal terms, translating them from French into German and American English and from German into French and American English (including hundreds of terms for which TERMDAT.ch does not provide an English translation). It is fully up-to-date and includes the new terminology of Swiss civil procedure and criminal procedure that have been in effect since 2011. In addition to those two areas of law, the dictionary also covers civil law, criminal law, constitutional law, debt collection and bankruptcy, and corporate law. Particularly tricky terms are accompanied by a brief explanation, and where the term differs from the one usually used in France or Germany, the term from those countries is indicated as well. At the end of each half of the book is a list of abbreviations and acronyms frequently encountered in Swiss legal writings, including many single-letter abbreviations that would be impossible to find by searching online. For many of the terms, the dictionary references the precise section number where they can be found in the relevant Swiss Code or Act, making it the perfect place to start an Internet search for additional information.
The differences between legal German in Switzerland legal German in Germany are legion. For example, KG stands for Kommanditgesellschaft in Germany.
But in Switzerland KG stands for Kollektivgesellschaft, and the abbreviation for Kommanditgesellschaft (which the Swiss have too) is KmG! And Germany’s Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien is called a Kommanditaktiengesellschaft in Switzerland.
Another example: One of the most important laws in Switzerland is the Schuldbetreibungs- und Konkursgesetz, abbreviated SchKG – but in Germany SchKG stands for the Schwangerschaftskonfliktgesetz.
Namensaktien is written Namenaktien in Switzerland (which looks like a typo to the Germans) and the Swiss only ever write Schadenersatz, never Schadensersatz.
Rechtsvorschlag is what the Germans would call a Widerspruch (it’s the debtor’s objection to an order to pay his debt). Eröffnung (which otherwise means "opening") also refers to "notice" in Switzerland, so schriftliche Eröffnung means "written notice" in Switzerland.
