The Con­cil­i­a­tion Board

What is the func­tion of the Con­cil­i­a­tion Board?

Pur­suant to the Or­di­nance on the Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Con­cil­i­a­tion Board (Fi­nanz­dienst­leis­tungs-Schlich­tungs­stel­len-Verord­nung, FSV) (Liecht­en­stein Law Gazette [LGBl.] 2009 No. 279 in its cur­rently valid ver­sion), the ex­tra­ju­di­cial Con­cil­i­a­tion Board is re­spon­si­ble for set­tling dis­putes be­tween fi­nan­cial ser­vices en­ter­prises such as as­set man­age­ment com­pa­nies, banks, se­cu­ri­ties firms, pay­ment ser­vice pro­vid­ers, elec­tronic money is­suers, man­age­ment com­pa­nies, trustees or trust com­pa­nies, VT ser­vice pro­vid­ers, as well as in­sur­ance dis­trib­u­tors and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies and their clients.

Where clients of fi­nan­cial ser­vice pro­vid­ers pur­suant to Art. 10 FSV are con­cerned, con­cil­i­a­tion re­quests may be sub­mit­ted by clients from any coun­try world­wide.

Since 01 July 2017, the same ex­tra­ju­di­cial Con­cil­i­a­tion Board has also had ju­ris­dic­tion pur­suant to the Al­ter­na­tive Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Act (Al­ter­na­tive Stre­it­bei­le­gungs-Gesetz), LGBl. 2016 No. 516, and the Rules of Pro­ce­dure ap­proved by the Gov­ern­ment on 17 De­cem­ber 2019 with re­gard to dis­putes be­tween con­sumers from an EEA mem­ber state and an en­ter­prise of any kind es­tab­lished in Liecht­en­stein in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor, pro­vided the claim arises from a re­mu­ner­ated con­tract be­tween the par­ties and does not re­late to health­care ser­vices, pub­lic pro­vid­ers of fur­ther or higher ed­u­ca­tion, non-eco­nomic ser­vices of gen­eral in­ter­est, or sales con­tracts re­lat­ing to im­mov­able prop­erty.

Pur­suant to the De­ci­sion of the Swiss Fed­eral De­part­ment of Fi­nance dated 04 De­cem­ber 2020, the Liecht­en­stein Con­cil­i­a­tion Board was also des­ig­nated as the om­buds of­fice pur­suant to Art. 84 para. 1 of the Swiss Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Act (FIDLEG), SR 950.1, for as­set man­agers dom­i­ciled in Liecht­en­stein who are mem­bers of the As­so­ci­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent As­set Man­agers in Liecht­en­stein and who have clients in Switzer­land.

The Con­cil­i­a­tion Board is avail­able to com­plain­ants as a neu­tral me­di­a­tion body and, ex­cept for a cost con­tri­bu­tion of CHF 50.00 in cases fall­ing un­der the ADR Act, free of charge. A key pre­req­ui­site for a func­tion­ing and recog­nised con­cil­i­a­tion body lies in its in­de­pen­dence from any in­sti­tu­tions po­ten­tially af­fected by its pro­ceed­ings.

The Con­cil­i­a­tion Board re­placed the former Bank­ing Om­buds­man on 01 No­vem­ber 2009. Its scope of ac­tiv­ity cov­ers a broader range of in­sti­tu­tions. In ad­di­tion to banks, it is also re­spon­si­ble for as­set man­age­ment com­pa­nies, se­cu­ri­ties firms, pay­ment ser­vice pro­vid­ers, elec­tronic money is­suers, man­age­ment com­pa­nies, self-man­aged UCITS or de­pos­i­taries un­der the UCITSG, as well as in­vestors and AIFMs, self-man­aged AIFs, de­pos­i­taries, ad­min­is­tra­tors or dis­trib­u­tors un­der the AIFMG, trustees or trust com­pa­nies, in­sur­ance com­pa­nies, and VT ser­vice pro­vid­ers.

Pur­suant to the FSV, one con­cil­i­a­tor has been ap­pointed by the Gov­ern­ment since 01 No­vem­ber 2009. To date, this has con­sis­tently been At­tor­ney-at-Law Dr. Peter Wolff, Vaduz, who had al­ready served as Bank­ing Om­buds­man since April 2005.