By: Tim Staheli and Carter Hoffman
Geneva and Zug together account for an estimated 35 per cent of global oil trading, and a dominant share of grain, metals, and soft commodity flows. The traders who operate here manage staggering quantities of physical goods: crude in supertankers, grain in bulk carriers, copper in containers – and they do it at speed, selling cargoes multiple times while still at sea. What makes this possible is a set of paper documents so fundamental to global trade that they have their own legal category: documents of title. Warehouse receipts, holding certificates, bills of lading – whoever holds the original controls the goods, and can sell them on by endorsing the document. For most of the industry’s history, that has meant a physical piece of paper.
What the DLT Act is
In 2021, Switzerland introduced the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Act, which amended the Swiss Code of Obligations to create a legal framework for ledger-based securities (Registerwertrechte). While the framework was originally developed for ledger-based rights more broadly, subsequent legal developments made it possible for qualifying electronic bills of lading to be constituted within that legal structure. This provides a statutory route for certain electronic documents used in commodity trade where Swiss law governs the relevant legal relationship. Rather than simply recognising digital records by contract, Switzerland established a legislative framework under which qualifying electronic instruments can receive legal recognition.
What was missing
Although the DLT Act established the broader framework for ledger-based securities, uncertainty remained over whether an electronic maritime bill of lading could be constituted within that framework with the same legal effect as its paper counterpart. That clarification did not arrive until the Federal Council’s ordinance, which took effect on 1 July 2026. Until then, market participants faced uncertainty over whether qualifying electronic bills of lading would receive the same statutory recognition under Swiss law.
That uncertainty mattered because it left room for the contractual workarounds that have characterised much of today’s electronic bill of lading market. Many existing eBL platforms rely on multi-party rulebooks that require participants to agree contractually to recognise electronic documents. If a participant falls outside that contractual framework, paper documents may still be required. While these arrangements have enabled electronic trade documentation, they depend upon contractual participation rather than statutory recognition. As of 2026, only around three to five per cent of global bills of lading are estimated to have transitioned to electronic form, illustrating the continuing gap between legal capability and commercial adoption.
The Swiss response
The Federal Council’s ordinance, which entered into force on 1 July 2026, amended the Maritime Shipping Ordinance to clarify that qualifying electronic bills of lading can be constituted within Switzerland’s ledger-based securities framework. Together with the earlier DLT Act, this provides a statutory route for qualifying electronic bills of lading under Swiss law. For market participants choosing to use that framework, the legislation offers statutory recognition without relying solely on private contractual rulebooks.
To qualify under the Swiss framework, a system must demonstrate characteristics including uniqueness, exclusive control by the lawful holder, and protection against unauthorised alteration. These requirements align with longstanding principles governing transferable electronic records, although Switzerland implements them through its own ledger-based legal framework. These are the conditions that platforms such as Secro, built around native tokenisation rather than contractual simulation, are designed to meet.
Why this matters to the ecosystem
For banks, traders, and logistics providers that choose to operate within this legal framework, qualifying electronic instruments can potentially be issued, transferred, and financed under a statutory regime governed by Swiss law. Supporters argue that this reduces reliance on contractual rulebooks and provides greater legal certainty for transactions conducted within the scope of the legislation.
Switzerland also combines this legal framework with its long-established commodity trading sector, financial infrastructure, and stable legal environment. Supporters argue that these characteristics make it an attractive jurisdiction for developing digital trade documentation, although broader questions around interoperability and cross-border recognition remain the subject of ongoing industry debate.
Secro argues that its platform differs from many existing electronic bill of lading solutions because it is built around native tokenisation within a private distributed ledger rather than relying primarily on contractual rulebooks to establish uniqueness and control. According to the company, each document is represented by a unique cryptographic token, with the intention of satisfying the requirements of the Swiss legal framework directly within the technology. Whether this approach offers advantages over other legal and technological models will ultimately depend on market adoption and interoperability across jurisdictions.
Correction (13 July 2026): An earlier version of this article inaccurately characterised Switzerland’s legal framework for electronic bills of lading as an implementation of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) and included imprecise descriptions of the relationship between Switzerland’s ledger-based securities regime and documents of title. The article has been updated to more accurately reflect the legal framework established under Swiss law.
