@swissmining
As you seem to be familiar with swiss law: what is your assessment (I estimate that you are no lawyer, so I will not hold you accountable for your opinion) regarding "terms of serivice" and "customer protection plan"?
Is there anything special in swiss law (that you are aware of) or are the contract parties (bitmine, customer) each bound to these agreements (I'd expect the latter if these agreements don't harm superior law)?
I mean, no one was allowed to ask for a premature refund with reference to agreements.
If the customers are not allowed to do something that is out of the agreement, why the hell does bitmine think it is allowed to?
I'm not (yet) a lawyer, but im familiar with the swiss law. Don't hold me accountable for my opinion though
My opinion on their TOS / CPP:
In Switzerland, customers are well protected in case of Consumer contracts (B2C). If the contracts between Bitmine / Consumers would be considered as such a contract, their TOS / CPP would definetly be abusive and would't hold up in court. But I don't think we're talking about consumer contracts here:
Art. 32 of the Swiss Civil Procedure Codes states, what consumer contracts are:
"Consumer contracts are contracts on supplies for ordinary consumption intended for the personal use of the consumer or his family and offered by the other party in the course of its professional or commercial activity."
Since Switzerland has the "freedom of contract", I assume that their TOS / CPP are legit. I'm not 100% sure about this. If Bitmine doesn't hold up to their TOS / CPP, they breach the contract and are responsible for this breach.
In case they don't refund me in time (including a short grace period), they breach their TOS. With this behavior, they can only win some time, but would definetly loose in front of a court.
My worst concern is, that bitmine already is illiquid. In this case, it's not going to be easy to get my money back.
This is how I'm going to proceed:
- No refund withing grace period --> file a Betreibung (compulsory execution) --> since I don't have a so called "Rechtsöffnungstitel" (dismissal of objection), i have to file a "normal" law suit at the court of bellinzona, which prior requires a mediation. --> If I win the court proceedings (which I think is waterproof), Il get the above mentioned "Rechtsöffnungstitel", which allowes me to continue the compulsory execution. If they still don't pay me, I'm allowed to file a petition for bankruptcy. If the judge declares bankruptcy, all assets from bitmine will be seized and bitmine will loose power of disposition. The seized money will be handed percentualy to all creditors.
There also is a possibilty to directly file a petition for bankruptcy, if they stop paying all their creditors. But the requirement to file such a petition is very high. If we can prove, that the systematicly dind't pay anybody who asked for a refund, this is a possibilty.
This is the procedure to get your money back. On the other hand, I see a good chance (I don't clame that he did violate!) that bitmine (or especially Giorgo) violated the Swiss fair trade law or even the swiss penalty code. In this case, a law suit will be filed directly againts Giorgo (not Bitmine). If many customers file a complaint at the police office, the authoroties have to act ex officio.
It's not easy to explain the procedure in english. I'll keep you updated. If Bitmine forces me persueing the legal way, I'll (legaly) do anything to bring them to justice, also willing to group up with you guys to enforce our rights!
Sorry for all the mistakes and my sloppy english, but I'm in a hurry.
