Covid-19 mini-series | Legal advice for Switzerland Privacy, Health & Technologies
by Gabriel Avigdor
With Covid-19, the world is facing a huge crisis and the economy will be massively impacted.
New coronavirus, known as “Covid-19“, spreads itself from China (Wuhan province) to Europe, and then to the world leading to unprecedented measures from authorities in various countries, including Switzerland. Public health issues combine health law, protection of personal data & Privacy and the use of new technologies to fight and help during this tough historical time. Remote work and the use of online conferencing tools has flourished and turned from B2B to B2C with down sides of using online tools in an urgency mode without proper diligence.
To support as much as we can on providing useful information, we have started a legal mini-series, including tips and downloadable documents for business and organizations. This series of guidance and materials aim at providing simple and practical information to better understand and tackle legal issues and economic repercussions due to the coronavirus.
Both public and private organisations are suffering. We intend to publish regular posts on our LinkedIn page and our dedicated Covid-19 website on datalex, our new digital legal platform for organizations seeking legal advice and services.
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ABOUT OUR MINI LEGAL SERIES
We are committed to providing legal advice and guidance to individuals and companies in connection with Covid-19. As usual, this series is bilingual (FR/EN) with some episodes in Italian! The first episode provides information on the application of the law on epidemics and its federal ordinance. For the other ones, here is the list of our episodes:
Episode 1: Federal Act on Epidemics
Episode 3: Criminal sanctions: what are the risks?
Episode 4: Ethics guidelines: rules for triage of patients in intensive care units
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DATA PRIVACY PERSPECTIVE FOR SWITZERLAND / GERMANY / BELGIUM
To provide further legal guidance on technology and data protection to businesses, we regularly participate webinars with law firms around the world that are part of the PrivacyRules network on data privacy matters. We have started with the following webinar in 4 parts, in collaboration with German and Belgian experts for comparative data protection considerations between these three countries.
Part 1: What Data Protection Authorities are saying
Part 2: Challenges and possible solutions
Part 3: Top tips and advice for organizations
Part 4: What may happen post-Covid-19
Note that the episodes of this webinar are in English only.
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IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY
While Switzerland’s historic decision to limit events to a maximum of 1,000 people intends to reduce the risk of the virus spreading, it has a major impact on event organisers and other sectors of industry. Employers have to deal with teleworking solutions and implement health and remote work policies and deal with travel and distance restrictions. Employers also need to ensure that they do not interrupt the supply of goods, and have to potentially deal with contract termination or damages for non-performance. This includes, where necessary, to invoke force majeure or reject force majeure arguments from suppliers who are under the impossibility to deliver their services.
The economic repercussions in Switzerland and around the world are enormous. The Watches and Wonders exhibition decied to cancel the event on 27 February 2020. After this, the lucrative Geneva International Motor Show (GIMS), took the same path on 28 February 2020. After this, the famous Cully Jazz Festival had to accounce cancellation of its 2020 Edition on March 10, 2020. The organisers of this festival declared that, except with donation and external financial support and given the considerable losses, this cancellation may jeopardise future editions.
When it came to Italy deciding on 9 March 2020 to quarantine the country, the EU population was in shock, realizing the seriousness of the facts. France decided to limit the events to a maximum of 1000 people. In Spain, the World Mobile Exhibition in Barcelona cancelled the event, which was expecting more than 110k visitors. Such event would generate around 492 million euros in local economic spin-offs, as well as more than 14,000 jobs. The same happened to the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix. Originally scheduled for April 19 2020 in Shanghai, they decided to postpone it.
A list of all the episodes in this series can be found on the publications page of this blog or on the dedicated page on datalex.ch.
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FEDERAL vs CANTONAL COMPETENCES
On 28 February 2020, the Federal Council decided by means of a federal ordinance to ban large scale events involving more than 1,000 people. This decision resulted from the outbreak of the “Covid-19”. This is a measure that is normally under the responsibility of the cantons. However, in special emergency situations, the government must protect the population against communicable diseases. In those case, the Swiss Confederation may enact measures by means of a federal ordinance. It has used such power to limit the gathering of people. Furthermore, the Federal Office of Public Health (‘FOPH’) explained, in a press release dated 28 February 2020, the different situations that can arise when dealing with a contagious disease that endangers public health.
(1) In normal situations
The cantons are competent to put in place the necessary measures to protect the population. These consist of quarantine and isolation measures.
(2) In special situations
The Federal Council may encroach on the autonomy of the cantons. This may be the case where: (a) the cantons can no longer exercise their prerogatives or take appropriate measures, should there be a (i) high risk of infection and spread to the population, a (ii) risk to public health or (iii) to the economy. This may also be the case if (b) the World Health Organization (WHO) declares an international health emergency threatening Switzerland.
(3) Extraordinary situations
They arise in the event of an “extraordinary threat to public health“. In such circumstances, the Federal Council may issue federal ordinances without the need for a legal basis in order to take rapid and targeted actions applicable to all Switzerland. The cantons may still have some room to implement them or to issue stricter rules. Pandemic situations may be considered as extraordinary situations, which the Federal Council may invoke to use its overriding powers.
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By Gabriel Avigdor | NTIC.ch
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