Title: Legal Grounds and Breach of Investor Protection under Swiss Law
Author: Joe L. White, Jr.
Date: July 01, 2025
Reference: Conciliation Request – Nexo AG, Canton of Zug
Purpose
To summarize the legal frameworks relevant to this dispute and show how Nexo AG’s conduct may violate Swiss standards governing investor protection, fair competition, and data transparency.
This annex is not a legal opinion. It reflects my understanding, based on personal research and professional consultation, of how Nexo AG’s platform conduct intersects with the legal duties codified in Swiss financial, consumer protection, and data privacy laws.
Legal Framework Summary
1. Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP)
Under Articles 25 (Right of access) and 28 (Duty to correct inaccurate data) of the revised Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP, SR 235.1), individuals have a right to receive comprehensive, accurate, and timely access to all personal data processed by a data controller.
2. Financial Services Act (FinSA)
FinSA imposes duties of transparency and appropriateness on financial service providers particularly those marketing to retail clients. Nexo marketed its platform as “secure,” “regulated,” and “safer than a bank,” without disclosing that margin lending and leveraged risk exposure were built into the product structure. Such omissions breach FinSA Articles 8 (Duty to inform), 10 (Appropriateness assessment), and 12 (Suitability assessment), particularly in the context of offering leveraged financial services to retail clients without proper disclosure or risk profiling.
3. Unfair Competition Act (UCA)
Under Article 3(1)(b), (c), and (d) of the Swiss Unfair Competition Act (UCA, SR 241), it is prohibited to disseminate misleading commercial information, omit material risk facts, or create deceptive impressions of regulatory protection. Nexo AG’s marketing conduct appears to meet these criteria by emphasizing Swiss brand alignment while concealing its Cayman legal structure and risk design.
Investor Rights Impact
As a retail client acting in good faith:
- The platform failed to provide essential trading tools such as stop-loss functionality, liquidation alerts, or loan-to-value (LTV) visibility—omissions that deprived me of informed control over high-risk leveraged products.
- I was exposed to high-risk leveraged products without adequate risk warnings, disclosures, or informed consent;
- The platform’s presentation led me to believe that Swiss incorporation meant Swiss legal oversight, yet its legal accountability was routed through a Cayman-registered entity with no effective investor protections, violating the core assumption of regulatory transparency.
These outcomes are not anomalies. They reflect a systemic decoupling between Switzerland’s legal reputation and the exploitative structuring used by digital asset platforms to avoid investor-facing obligations. Without reform, the credibility of Swiss investor protections risks further erosion.
Statement of Intent
This annex is submitted in support of a good-faith civil conciliation request under ZPO Art. 202–204. The claimant asserts that the conduct described herein warrants regulatory attention and damages due to misrepresentation and unsupervised financial intermediation. No proprietary platform information is disclosed, and all references are based on claimant usage, public materials, and industry guidelines.
Disclaimer
This document is submitted in good faith, based solely on the claimant’s personal experience and publicly available facts. No confidential or privileged information has been disclosed. All statements reflect the claimant’s beliefs or recollections unless otherwise indicated. Names of third parties are anonymized or redacted where not publicly implicated. The purpose of this release is transparency, accountability, and resolution not defamation or harm.
Legal Context Note
This annex was authored solely by the claimant as part of a lawful civil conciliation filing under Articles 202–204 of the Swiss Civil Procedure Code (ZPO). It does not contain any confidential statements made during the conciliation hearing, nor does it disclose settlement terms or other protected materials governed by ZPO Art. 205.
The annex is based exclusively on:
- Personal experience,
- Publicly available information, or
- Facts the claimant is legally entitled to share.
Its purpose is to document the legal and factual basis for the claimant’s grievance, promote transparency, and serve the public interest where legal oversight may be insufficient.
The annex adheres to Swiss privacy and defamation standards under ZGB Art. 28, the Data Protection Act (DSG), and applicable banking/professional secrecy provisions (BankG, StGB Art. 321).
It is not an official court document, and no information disclosed herein was obtained through the hearing process.