{"id":2200,"date":"2016-01-13T17:14:35","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T16:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/?p=2200"},"modified":"2016-01-08T17:16:46","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T16:16:46","slug":"what-is-a-branch-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/what-is-a-branch-office\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a branch office?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A branch office is a business which is commercially independent from a head office. The branch office is legally dependent on the main company.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.startups.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Coiffeuse.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The branch is a commercial operation which, from a legal perspective, is a dependent part of a head office. It carries out the same type of activities as the headquarters and, in doing so, has commercial independence. Example: A Swiss retailer has their headquarters in the city of Z\u00fcrich. The chain operates other sites in Winterthur, B\u00fclach and Birmensdorf.<\/p>\n<p>From the viewpoint of the head office, the branch\u2019s role is to carry out the business activities in locations other than that of the head office. From a legal point of view, the prevailing opinion is that the other site is a branch if there is a <strong>geographical separation<\/strong> from the head office site. The business activity must also be carried out for a <strong>longer period of time<\/strong> and the branch must be under <strong>constant independent management<\/strong> (cf.Forstmoser\/Meier-Hayoz, Schweizerisches Gesellschaftsrecht or Swiss Civil Law, Pg.741). According to this definition, depots, fabrication sites and similar, for example, are not branches in the legal sense.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Setting up a branch office<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Swiss companies can set up branch offices in Switzerland and abroad. The Swiss branch must be entered in the commercial register (Art. 935 Para. 1 OR, cf. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/gruendung-einer-zweigniederlassung-in-der-schweiz-ein-rechtlicher-ueberblick\/\">blog entry<\/a>). Foreign companies can set up a branch office in Switzerland which must be entered in the commercial register in the branch\u2019s location (Art. 935 Para 2 OR).<\/p>\n<p><strong>A subsidiary is legally independent<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The branch office is not a subsidiary, as it remains legally part of the total company, and does not constitute a legal person. In contrast, a subsidiary has its own legal personality and is legally independent, but is commercially dependent on the parent company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A branch office is a business which is commercially independent from a head office. The branch office is legally dependent on the main company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[501],"tags":[502,505,503,508,507],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":7081,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p54Pb1-zu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200\/revisions\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.startups.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}