Tanja Schmidt

Dr. Tanja Schmidt is an attorney-at-law specializing in domestic and international commercial litigation, and in particular financial and banking disputes. She clerked at the Swiss Federal Supreme Court in the field of law of obligations, before joining a leading business law firm as an associate.

Dr. Tanja Schmidt earned a PhD from the University of Geneva with a thesis on contract law. She also conducted research as a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School and at Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law.

How to prove the damage allegedly suffered by a purchaser for overpriced shares of a target company?

To establish the damage suffered by a purchaser of shares of a target company based on an inaccurate financial audit report requires to allege and prove the hypothetical financial situation of the purchaser had the damage not occurred as well as what decisions the purchaser would have made if it had been aware of the correct financial value of the target company.

No matter what… it’s art!

The duty to inform on a specific feature of an artwork exists only if a seller should assume that this feature might influence the decision of a buyer to conclude a contract or even the conditions under which a contract is concluded.

Bona fides in negotiating: how disingenuous can one be?

Swiss law provides for a special basis of liability for conduct contrary to the rules of good faith in the context of pre-contractual negotiations. The more unreasonable the position adopted by a negotiating party, the more difficult it is for that party to successfully claim that the other party who broke off the negotiation is liable.

Warning to buyers: non-disclosure of FDA warning letters in due diligence did not trigger sellers’ liability

Insufficient substantiation of claims by the buyer of shares of a homeopathic drugs company for damages caused by an alleged breach of contractual warranty (non-disclosure of FDA warning letters) in a share purchase agreement.