Practitioners who trained in common-law jurisdictions and then begin working with Swiss materials often hit their first obstacle at the citation level. An OR citation like Art. 102 Abs. 1 OR or Art. 18 Abs. 2 i.V.m. Art. 19 OR looks straightforward once you know the conventions, but the conventions are rarely explained anywhere. This guide works through each component so that reading and constructing OR citations becomes mechanical.
We are not covering the entire body of Swiss contract law here. We are focusing specifically on how to parse a citation string and find the text it points to, because that is the step that precedes any substantive analysis.
The OR in the SR Hierarchy
The Obligationenrecht (OR) carries the SR number 220. In full: Bundesgesetz betreffend die Erganzung des Schweizerischen Zivilgesetzbuches (Funfter Teil: Obligationenrecht) vom 30. Marz 1911. The "fifth part of the ZGB supplement" framing is historical: when the ZGB (SR 210) was drafted, the OR was appended as its fifth part, which is why the two codes share a structural family.
For citation purposes, you almost never write out the SR number in a legal submission. The abbreviation OR (German), CO (French: Code des obligations), or CO (Italian: Codice delle obbligazioni) is used depending on the language of your submission. The text itself is the same statute in all three languages, each equally authoritative.
Anatomy of an OR Citation
A complete OR citation has these components, in this order:
- Art. (or
Artwithout period in French/Italian): Article number - Abs. (Absatz, paragraph within the article): paragraph number. French equivalent:
al.(alinea). Italian:cpv.(capoverso). - lit. (litera, lettered sub-item within a paragraph): letter. Used when an Absatz is divided into lettered items (a, b, c...).
- OR: the statute abbreviation
Example: Art. 102 Abs. 1 OR means Article 102, first paragraph, of the OR. This provision governs the consequences of a debtor being in default (Schuldnerverzug). Reading it requires first locating Article 102 in the OR text, then reading the first paragraph specifically.
A more complex example: Art. 266l Abs. 1 lit. a OR means Article 266l, first paragraph, item (a). This is within the tenancy notice provisions. The lit. a marker tells you there is a list in that paragraph and you need item (a) specifically.
The i.V.m. Construction
You will frequently encounter citations of the form Art. 18 Abs. 2 i.V.m. Art. 19 OR. The abbreviation i.V.m. stands for in Verbindung mit (in conjunction with). It signals that two provisions together establish the rule being cited: neither provision alone is sufficient.
In French submissions, the equivalent is en relation avec or en liaison avec, abbreviated en rel. avec. In Italian: in relazione con.
The i.V.m. construction is not decorative. When you see it, it means you need to read both provisions to understand what is being claimed. A citation that uses i.V.m. without the reader understanding why the two provisions interact together is a citation that has not been explained. When we encounter this structure in case research, we treat it as a signal that the underlying legal argument depends on a specific combination that needs to be made explicit.
Article Numbering Conventions: Letters After Numbers
Swiss federal statutes use an alphanumeric article numbering convention for amendments. When an article is inserted between existing articles, it receives the number of the preceding article plus a letter suffix. So Art. 266a OR through Art. 266o OR are all articles inserted into the tenancy provisions at Article 266, added over successive legislative amendments without renumbering the surrounding articles.
This means that the OR contains articles numbered, for example, 266, 266a, 266b, 266c ... 266o, 266p, 267, 267a, 268, and so on. A practitioner encountering Art. 266k OR for the first time might assume there is a gap in their knowledge, when in fact the letter suffix is simply the amendment numbering convention. All these provisions are in force and searchable in the SR text at admin.ch.
The French and Italian language versions use the same article numbers with the same letter suffixes, which makes cross-language verification straightforward once you know to look for the letter suffix in the index.
Cross-References Between OR and ZGB
Because the OR is technically the fifth part of the ZGB, cross-references between the two statutes appear frequently. An OR provision may cite Art. 2 ZGB (good faith) or Art. 8 ZGB (burden of proof). These are not unusual constructions: they reflect that the ZGB's general part applies to the OR where the OR does not provide a specific rule.
For citation purposes, this means a complete analysis of an OR question often requires tracing at least one ZGB provision. The SR numbers are different (220 for OR, 210 for ZGB), but the lookup method is identical: find the article in the SR text, read the paragraph specified.
Versions and Amendment History
The SR text on admin.ch is always the current consolidated version. When a BGer decision cites an OR provision, it is citing the version in force at the time of the dispute or the judgment. If you are working with an older BGer decision and the OR has been amended since, the article number may be the same but the text may have changed.
The admin.ch version history for each provision (labeled Fassung gemass or Version selon) shows when each paragraph was last amended and what the previous text said. For questions involving contracts entered into before an amendment, the version in force at contract formation is the one that applies, and you need the historical text, not the current one.
We are not saying that OR amendment history is relevant to every question. For most contemporary contract law questions, the current text is what you need. But for disputes involving long-running contracts or pre-amendment conduct, checking whether the provision changed is a necessary step that can change the analysis significantly.
Citing the OR in Submissions
Swiss courts accept citations in any of the three official languages. The convention in German-language proceedings is Art. X Abs. Y OR. In French-language proceedings: art. X al. Y CO. The article numbers are the same; the abbreviated statute name and the paragraph abbreviation change.
When citing OR provisions in English-language documents (transaction documents, international arbitration submissions, due diligence reports), the convention varies by practice. Some practitioners use the German-language citation alongside an English description; others use an English translation of the statute name (Swiss Code of Obligations, Art. X). Either approach works provided the reader can trace the citation, but using the German abbreviation OR in an otherwise English document is the most immediately recognizable to Swiss practitioners reviewing the text.
The goal of any citation is to allow the reader to verify the text independently. An OR citation achieves that if and only if the reader can locate the specific paragraph in the current or historical SR text and confirm that the cited provision says what the citing party claims. Every component of the citation string serves that verification function.
