Corporate law translation. Articles of association and minutes, translated

Articles of association filed in German, minutes kept in French, a register extract requested in Italian: a Swiss company lives in several languages. Corrext uses the terms of the Code of Obligations itself.

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Each term, in the official text

Highlight a corporate law term: CHnell shows its German version in the same federal act, with its source.

assemblée généraleFrenchGerman278 results

S’il y a des actions privilégiées, il ne peut être émis de nouvelles actions qui les primeraient qu’avec l’approbation tant d’une assemblée spéciale des actionnaires atteints que d’une assemblée générale de tous les actionnaires.

Hat eine Gesellschaft Vorzugsaktien ausgegeben, so können weitere Vorzugsaktien, denen Vorrechte gegenüber den bereits bestehenden Vorzugsaktien eingeräumt werden sollen, nur mit Zustimmung sowohl einer besonderen Versammlung der beeinträchtigten Vorzugsaktionäre als auch einer Generalversammlung sämtlicher Aktionäre ausgegeben werden.

SR-220 OR-CO-CO-CO - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

Art. 49 Assemblée générale Comme pour la société anonyme, l'assemblée générale est l'organe suprême de la SICAV.

Art. 49 Generalversammlung Wie bei der Aktiengesellschaft ist die Generalversammlung das oberste Organ der SICAV.

EBK FF20055993 Botschaft-zum-Bundesgesetz-über-die-kollektiven-Kapitalanlagen-Kollektivanlagengeset - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

En cas de vacance, les membres nommés par le Conseil fédéral sont remplacés le plus rapidement possible; ceux qui ont été élus par l'assemblée générale sont remplacés lors de l'assemblée générale suivante.

Die vom Bundesrat gewählten Mitglieder sind so bald wie möglich, die von der Generalversammlung gewählten Mitglieder anlässlich der nächsten Generalversammlung zu ersetzen.

EFV FF20036205 Bundesgesetz-über-die-Schweizerische-Nationalbank-Nationalbankgesetz-NBG - Source: fedlex.admin.ch - Data Set: Neur.on

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Company vocabulary, in all four languages

These equivalents are those of the German, French and Italian versions of the Code of Obligations. They are also the labels used by the commercial register offices, so you can check them document by document. The English column uses the translation published by the Confederation on Fedlex where there is one, which has no legal force, and common usage otherwise.

German	French	Italian	English	Reference
Aktiengesellschaft	société anonyme	società anonima	company limited by shares	art. 620 CO
Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung	société à responsabilité limitée	società a garanzia limitata	limited liability company	art. 772 CO
Statuten	statuts	statuto	articles of association	art. 626 CO
Aktienkapital	capital-actions	capitale azionario	share capital	art. 621 CO
Generalversammlung	assemblée générale	assemblea generale	general meeting	art. 698 CO
Verwaltungsrat	conseil d'administration	consiglio d'amministrazione	board of directors	art. 707 CO
Revisionsstelle	organe de révision	ufficio di revisione	external auditor	art. 727 CO
Handelsregister	registre du commerce	registro di commercio	commercial register	art. 927 CO

Equivalents taken from official Swiss texts, published in German, French and Italian. In Corrext, each term opens in context in Fast lookup CHnell, with its source.

The acts company documents cite every day

Swiss company law sits in the Code of Obligations, supplemented by the ordinance that organises the commercial register. Two other acts come into play as soon as an entity changes its legal form or a foundation is involved.

Code of Obligations (CO)

DEORFR · ITCO

Its Titles 23 to 32 govern the simple partnership, the general partnership, the limited partnership, the company limited by shares, the partnership limited by shares, the limited liability company and the cooperative, as well as the commercial register, business names and commercial accounting

HRegV

Commercial Register Ordinance

FR · ITORC

It sets out the content of entries, applications and extracts

FusG

Mergers Act

FR · ITLFus

It governs any change in the structure of a company or a foundation

Swiss Civil Code

DEZGBFR · ITCC

It governs associations and foundations, which the Code of Obligations does not cover

Translating company documents, in practice

Corporate law translation covers the documents that record the life of a legal entity: articles of association, organisational regulations, notices of meeting, minutes, commercial register entries. Corporate bodies and legal forms have a precise name in each of the three official languages. That name is the one in the register, not a free translation.

What company documents require

Articles of association
Articles of association follow the provisions of the CO almost word for word. The translation keeps the official wording of each concept, from the objects of the company to the share capital.
Minutes
Resolutions of the general meeting and of the board of directors are translated in their layout, with majorities and quorum statements in place.
Register entry
The commercial register office works in the official language of the canton. The version filed must use the register's terms, not their synonyms.

What Corrext brings to this area

Notice of meeting and agenda

A notice convening a meeting often goes out the same day in two languages. Text translation, in Text and document translation, accepts up to 10,000 pasted characters, with no file needed.

Translated extract

You can order the translation of a commercial register extract online, with three certification levels, up to notarisation and an apostille for use abroad.

Sourced terminology

Fast lookup CHnell covers 30 domains, including Company Law and Articles of Association, with the official source of each occurrence.

Repetitive documents

Articles of association, regulations and powers of attorney change little from one year to the next. In Standard confidentiality, the translation memory makes these updates much faster.

Affiliated companies

The same term must stay identical in the articles of association of every subsidiary. The concordancer accepts your own terminology resources, shared across your teams.

Three moments in a company's life that go through translation

Incorporation

Articles of association in the canton's language

The founder drafts in English; the commercial register office expects German or French. The translation uses the wording of the CO, and any doubtful term can be checked in context in CHnell before filing.

General meeting

Minutes to circulate

The minutes are kept in one language and read in three. The document comes back in its layout, with quorum and majority statements, and a Light review is usually enough for internal circulation.

Governance

Regulations for every subsidiary

The same regulations apply to entities in German, French and Italian-speaking Switzerland. CHnell's shared terminology resources keep the vocabulary identical from one version to the next, year after year.

Frequently asked questions on company documents

Do articles of association have to be translated into all three official languages?

No. The law does not require three versions: registration takes place in an official language of the canton. Companies with shareholders or subsidiaries in several language regions do circulate a working translation, however, and that translation must use the register's labels exactly.

How do I get a certified translation of a commercial register extract?

You order it online at auszug-hr.ch, the Corrext service accessible from the platform's home page. There are three certification levels, depending on the intended use: a certificate signed and stamped by Corrext, authentication by a Swiss notary, and then an apostille from the cantonal State Chancellery for use abroad.

Can confidential minutes be translated safely?

Yes, provided you choose the right mode. Storage is in Switzerland in every case. Highly sensitive content mode also requires processing in Switzerland only, with no reuse of the content in a translation memory. Before anything is sent, engines hosted abroad trigger the Attorney-Client privilege notice, which reminds users of your organisation's policy.

How do I keep the same vocabulary from one year to the next?

With the translation memory and the concordancer. In Standard confidentiality, a project feeds a memory that only your organisation can reuse. Fast lookup CHnell also accepts your own terminology resources, on top of its 30 sourced domains. The resources can be shared across your teams, so no subsidiary ends up with a different label.

Which languages are covered for company documents?

German, French, Italian and English are native, in every pair, and the platform covers 30 languages in total. This helps when a foreign shareholder asks for a working version of the articles of association or of the minutes. Between them, the four native languages cover the German, French and Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland.

Can my own legal team do the review?

Yes. The Internal review mode in the project workflow organises review by your teams and estimates the time needed from the number of standard pages detected in the uploaded files. External review by a legal translator remains available alongside.