Costs follow the event — with real limits
Swiss courts allocate costs by outcome. Lose, and you typically bear the court fees and must compensate the other side for its legal representation; win, and those flow your way. Win partly — which is how most commercial cases end, with some claims allowed and others not — and both cost items are split in proportion to the outcome. A party that claims aggressively and recovers half has, in cost terms, half lost.
Two features of the system deserve attention before you file. Courts generally ask the claimant to advance the expected court costs, so litigation requires cash up front, not just at the end. And a defendant faced with certain claimants — typically those without a seat in Switzerland — can ask for security for its costs before the case proceeds.
Why the tariff rarely makes you whole
The compensation the loser pays for your lawyer is not your lawyer's invoice. It is calculated under cantonal tariffs, driven largely by the amount in dispute, with adjustments for the complexity of the case. In hard-fought commercial matters — heavy documents, experts, multiple exchanges — the hours actually worked routinely exceed what the tariff contemplates. The difference stays with you, win or lose.
This is not a flaw to litigate around; it is a parameter to plan with. Ask your lawyer early for both numbers: the expected fees, and the realistic tariff compensation if you win. The gap between them is the irreducible cost of even a successful case.
Cost risk is a settlement instrument
Once you see the full picture — your unrecoverable fee gap, the risk of paying the other side's compensation, the court advance, the years of management attention — the economics of settlement change. A settlement forgoes the chance of full victory, but it also caps both cost exposures and ends the drain now. That is why experienced parties treat every stage of a Swiss proceeding, starting with conciliation, as a pricing exercise: what is this claim worth net of costs, discounted for risk and time?
The same logic works in your favour when your case is strong: the other side faces the mirror image of your cost risk, and a well-documented claim makes that arithmetic uncomfortable for them early.
What the numbers look like in your dispute depends on the amount, the forum and the fight — a conversation worth having with a lawyer before proceedings begin.