Contract law

FORI Avocat·e·s SA drafts and negotiates all contracts governed by the Code of Obligations, whether contracts of sale, for work and services or of mandate, employment contracts, service, distribution, licence or assignment contracts, loans and acknowledgements of debt, partnership agreements or settlement agreements. We pay particular attention to the clauses on which the strength of a contract depends – warranties, limitation of liability, penalty clauses, confidentiality and non-competition, termination conditions, applicable law, jurisdiction and arbitration clause – and adapt the degree of sophistication of the document to the real stakes of the transaction.

Where performance runs into difficulty, we determine with our clients the strategy to adopt and the remedies the law affords them, from formal notice to specific performance, from rescission of the contract to reduction of the price, from damages to warranty for defects, without overlooking questions of limitation, which are often decisive. We assist them in the negotiation phase and then, if necessary, before the conciliation authorities and the Geneva civil courts, as well as in recovering their claims, including by way of debt enforcement, the setting-aside of an objection and attachment.

Thanks to regular practice in civil litigation, we draft contracts anticipating how they will be read by a judge on the day they are challenged. In cross-border relationships, we systematically examine questions of applicable law and jurisdiction (PILA, Lugano Convention) and the arrangements for the recognition and enforcement of decisions. In every case, our aim remains to secure the contractual relationship upstream and, should a dispute arise, to resolve it as swiftly and effectively as possible.