Technology M&A: A Chambers Global Practice Guide – Switzerland

The M&A activity in the Swiss TMT sector has been deeply impacted by several financial and global geolopolitical challenges, causing a significant decline of deals in 2024 compared to previous years.

The TMT sector is particularly sensitive to transformation, a necessity for their business to be constantly implementing new products, driving digitalisation and AI to stay competitive and attract investors.

Our specialists provide an overview of the Technology M&A landscape, presenting both the current state of Law and Practice and the important trends & developments in the sector in two distinct chapters.

The Law & Practice chapter

In the Law & Practice chapter, the team tackles the following key aspects:

• Main legal considerations to establish a company, in which form and what is the best financial approach
• How to conduct liquidity events and highlighting the most common approach of the Swiss market: the IPOs
• Best practice in case of spin-offs business approach
• Legal issues related to acquiring public tech companies
• Important regulatory requirements to keep in mind when leading Technology M&A transactions
• Recent Court decisions and Legal development reforming the practice
• Overview of Due Diligence and Data Privacy processes and requirements
• Transparency related to information to disclose 
• Details on the director’s role and duties towards the company

The Trends & Developments chapter

In this chapter, the team focused on going into more details in explaining the decline of M&A transactions in 2024 in the TMT sector, coming from a shift already started in 2022. These changes are notable especially in:

• The type of transaction and deal structure
• The business actors and drivers of transactions
• The growing importance of Data protection, Due Diligence and IP protection and the new regulations to apply in those specific fields

Please do not hesitate to contact our experts on the topic should you require a more tailor-made approach to you business.