Unfair Competition Act, Exploitation of Another Person's Market-Ready Work Product

Federal Act against Unfair Competition (UWG/LCD), SR 241, Art. 2, 5 lit. c, 23

A citation is an address, not a summary. The first part names the law; what follows narrows it to the exact section, article or paragraph.

What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.

In force since 1 March 1988.

An unfair competition rule binding private bodies.

As of 6 September 2026.

What it requires

Do not take over and exploit, through a technical reproduction process, another person's market-ready work product without a reasonable effort of your own.
Intentional conduct that meets this or the Act's other unfair-competition grounds is prosecuted on complaint and can carry a custodial sentence or a monetary penalty, in addition to any civil claim.

If you get it wrong

Criminal exposureYes

Private right of actionYes

Criminal exposure note

Article 23 paragraph 1: intentional unfair competition under Articles 3, 4, 5 or 6 is punishable on complaint by a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or a monetary penalty, in the wording in force since 1 July 2016.

What this law does

Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.

Article 2's general clause treats as unfair and unlawful any deceptive conduct, or conduct otherwise contrary to good faith, that affects the relationship between competitors or between suppliers and customers.

Article 5 lit. c specifically treats as unfair taking over and exploiting, as such, another's market-ready work product through a technical reproduction process without a reasonable own effort, a misappropriation-style doctrine capable of reaching the wholesale technical copying of a competitor's compiled output, including scraped data, though no reported Swiss case applies it specifically to web scraping.

Intentional unfair competition under Articles 3 to 6 is a criminal offence on complaint, carrying a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or a monetary penalty (Art. 23 para. 1), in its current form since 1 July 2016.

When LexLint raises it

crawls_web
trains_models

Read the law

Federal Act against Unfair Competition, Fedlex

Every line above is drawn from the primary source linked here, read on the date shown. This is a research summary, not legal advice.

Back to the example · Lint your app