B2B cold outreach in Switzerland

Switzerland is the only market in this set outside the European Union, and that changes two things at once: the legal basis for sending, and the mechanism that decides whose law applies.

What Swiss law requires

The basis is Article 3(1)(o) of the Swiss Unfair Competition Act (UWG). The provision is built differently from the German one: instead of a consent requirement alone, it bundles three conditions for mass advertising into a single place. It is unfair to send mass advertising with no direct connection to requested content where the sender has not obtained prior consent, or does not give a correct sender address, or does not point to an easy and free way to refuse further messages.

That construction is practically useful, because the three things the pre-flight checklist enforces in the product map exactly onto the three limbs of the provision: consent, sender identification, a working unsubscribe.

Why sending from Poland is no shelter

Switzerland applies the market-effect principle through Article 136(1) of the Swiss Private International Law Act (IPRG, SR 291): claims arising from unfair competition are governed by the law of the state on whose market the unfair act takes effect.

On top of that comes a difference Germany and Austria do not have. Switzerland is not covered by the e-Commerce Directive, so the country-of-origin principle does not apply there at all, rather than merely being carved out for unsolicited commercial mail. Status as a service provider established in Poland offers no shelter here.

The existing-customer exception

Here too the path for your own customers is tied to the sale of goods, works or services. The conclusion matches Germany and Austria: signing up for a free plan does not create an existing customer within the meaning of the provision, because no sale took place.

What Wrenwire blocks before launch

Switzerland falls under the same pre-flight checklist as Germany and Austria. A campaign will not start without a declared legal basis, complete sender details, SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured for the sending domain, and the unsubscribe-link signing key.

Note that for Switzerland the last two are not an addition to the consent requirement but independent limbs of the provision: a missing correct sender address, or a missing easy refusal option, is enough to make the sending unfair even if the consent question were settled.

The GDPR and Switzerland

Switzerland has its own data protection law, and at the same time the GDPR may apply to a controller in the Union processing data in connection with offering goods or services. Wrenwire does not settle that for you and does not differentiate here: the Article 14 GDPR notice is injected into the first message regardless of market, because that duty has no market gate in the product, and delivering information about the source of the data is in practice expected on the Swiss side as well.

Which data protection regimes bind you in a specific campaign goes beyond what the system can assess.

The suppression list

The easy and free refusal option is part of the Swiss provision itself, so the suppression list is not an operational convenience there but a component of compliance. Unsubscribes act organization-wide: an address suppressed once stays suppressed in every campaign that follows, and the filter runs before every hand-off of contacts to sending.

LinkedIn and phone

LinkedIn is governed by the platform’s terms, and a message after an accepted connection request is a conversation inside somebody else’s service, so no sender block is required there. Sending is not automated.

Phone has its own rules in Switzerland, including the well-known opt-out marker in the telephone directory, and is a channel separate from email.

Legal position as at 6 September 2026. This page describes how the product behaves and cites the provisions that behaviour rests on. It is not legal advice and does not determine whether your campaign is lawful.