Personal bankruptcy reform in Switzerland: Transition from first-century Cessio to twenty-first century discharge

The Swiss personal bankruptcy procedure today bears a striking resemblance to the 2000-year-old ancient Roman form of debt relief called cessio bonorum. But not for long. Switzerland is finally ready to join its European neighbors in abandoning this outmoded Roman approach to overindebtedness, modernizing its personal insolvency law to make real debt relief more available, more effective, and more suitable to the 21st century. This article describes the surprising parallel between the ancient Roman procedure and current Swiss personal bankruptcy practice. It reveals why this antiquated approach is ineffective to achieve the modern goals of personal insolvency policy. It then describes how current law elsewhere pursues these goals, examining the increasingly liberal personal debt relief procedures in neighboring Austria, Germany, France, Italy, and Liechtenstein as comparative foils for an evaluation of the pending Swiss reform proposal. Judging by the formal, recorded reactions of the political parties and cantons to this well-structured proposal, Swiss lawmakers seem poised to usher their personal bankruptcy law into the modern era at long last.