is the field of expertise of Dr. Boesch. Liechtenstein's freedom of services within the European Economic Area (EEA) enables the law office of Dr. Bösch to represent clients before the courts of the Principality of Liechtenstein. Since our law office does not administrate Liechtenstein legal entities or trusts, there is no conflict of interest of any kind regarding potential legal action against such entities. With a few exceptions, the law of civil procedure in Liechtenstein is very similar to the law of civil procedure in Austria.

Dr. Bösch aims to provide expert legal advice on Liechtenstein law. He has published extensively on Liechtenstein company and trust law, and has thus made his law office a small but distinguished address for difficult legal issues in this area. His main activities in this field of law are giving legal advice and expert opinions, as well as drafting trust instruments and foundation documents.

Dr. Bösch’s special expertise means he is highly qualified to participate in arbitration proceedings involving Liechtenstein’s legal entities or trusts and to act as an expert arbitrator.

The development of trust law in Liechtenstein has benefited considerably from Dr. Bösch’s legal research. His persistent criticism led to the Supreme Court of the Principality of Liechtenstein breaking with tradition in its decision of June 6, 2000 (published in the Liechtensteinischen-Juristen-Zeitung 2000, 148 seq.) and adopting the legal opinion on trust law in Liechtenstein advocated by Dr. Bösch.

The Liechtenstein Supreme Court has often referred to publications of Dr. Bösch (e.g. Supreme Court in LES 2000, 242 seq. and in LES 2001, 90 seq.) in cases involving foundations and the establishment of companies. In particular, the Court drew on his work in making an important change in 1996 to the law of foundations, which drew some attention to Liechtenstein’s professional trustees. The Supreme Court held that the rights of the founder of a foundation can be assigned and inherited in the same manner as the rights of the founder of an establishment provided that the statutes of the foundation contain a corresponding provision. In 1997 Dr. Bösch criticized this decision (Jus & News 1997, 288 seq.) as being methodically untenable because the requirements for there to be an analogy with the law of establishment were not fulfilled.

In the fall of 1997 the judges at the Liechtenstein Supreme Court changed. In 2000 in an obiter dictum of a decision (published in LES 2000, 243) the new judges noted that Dr. Bösch had raised ”serious arguments” against the decision of 1996. The new judges had already issued an order stating that they did not necessarily agree with the reasoning of their predecessors. A courageous judge in the lower court (the Landgericht Vaduz) acted on this signal and, in a case that commenced in 1999, he adopted Dr. Bösch’s argumentation and held that the rights of the founder of a foundation could not legally be assigned in the same way as the rights of the founder of an establishment.

In a decision published in the Liechtensteinischen Juristen-Zeitung (LES 2002, 41), the Supreme Court finally abandoned their traditional approach, referring explicitly to Dr. Bösch’s arguments. Accordingly, the Liechtenstein Supreme Court now holds that a founder of a Liechtenstein foundation may not assign or inherit his or her (expressly reserved) right to change the statutes of the foundation to the foundation board or a third party. This decision has led to a long-standing practice becoming illegal whereby some Liechtenstein professional trustees tried to make the rights to control foundations negotiable through cession documents.

This change in the law has helped to protect foundations against the influence of third parties. However, in this case the Supreme Court probably went too far: There seem to be no sound legal obstacles preventing a founder from transferring or inheriting specified powers to a third party or to the foundation’s board provided such powers and their transfer have been expressly in the foundation’s statutes and provided that these powers do not affect the foundation’s purpose or existence.

The main focus of Dr. Bösch’s legal research in the past four years has been a project on Liechtenstein foundation law initiated by the Liechtenstein Institute. The outcome of this project is a general treatise regarding Liechtenstein Law on Foundations. It gives practicing lawyers guidance on many legal issues, which up until now have not been sufficiently treated in the legal literature. It provides lawyers from abroad with informative insights into the functioning of this rather secretive area of Liechtenstein’s law on foundations. For academic lawyers the treatise will also be of interest since it deals in detail with issues regarding the commonly used hybrid form of a “foundation”, which lies somewhere between company and foundation law.

The treatise was published by Stämpfli of Bern (ISBN 3-7272-9117-6) and Manz of Vienna (ISBN 3-27514-13091-9).

It has been available since May 2005 in bookstores specializing in law or may be ordered directly from Stämpfli (Email: verlag@staempfli.com) or Manz (Email: bestellen@manz.at).

• "Trust und Fiduzia im liechtensteinischen Recht" (“Trust and Fiducia in Liechtenstein Law“) – public lecture, held on Jun. 25, 1996 in FL-Gamprin (organizer: Liechtenstein-Institut); text of the lecture published in Jus & News 1997, 12 seq.
• "Die liechtensteinische Stiftung im Rechtsvergleich" (“The Foundation in Liechtenstein– A Legal Comparison“) – public lecture, held on Nov. 28, 2000 at the Liechtenstein-Institute in FL-Bendern (organizer: Liechtenstein-Institut)
• "Ist das liechtensteinische Stiftungsrecht reformbedürftig?" (“Does Liechtenstein’s Foundation Law Need Reform?“) – public lecture, held on Dec. 5, 2000 in FL-Gamprin (organizer: Liechtenstein-Institut)
• "Der Einfluss ausländischen Rechts auf die Kodifkation des PGR" (“The Influence of Foreign Law on the Codification of the Persons and Companies Act“) – public lecture, held on Sept. 23, 2001 in the Rathaussaal Vaduz on the occasion of the anniversary "75 years Persons and Companies Act" (organizer: Liechtenstein-Institut)
• "Gestaltungsspielräume im liechtensteinischen Stiftungsrecht - Chancen und Risiken" (“Drafting statutes in Liechtenstein’s Law on Foundations: Chances and Risks“) - lecture, held on Oct. 25, 2001 in the Business Center Kursaal of the Grand Hotel Bad Ragaz in connection with the 2. Liechtenstein Colloquium of the swissfirst Bank (Liechtenstein) AG
• "Pflichtteilsrecht versus Trust und Stiftung" (“Right to a Compulsory Portion Share vs. Trust and Foundation“) - lecture, held on Nov. 5, 2002 in the Hotel Löwen Vaduz for the members of the Society of Trust und Estate Practioners - Swiss, German and Liechtenstein Branch
• "Stiftungsrecht in Liechtenstein" (“Liechtenstein Law on Foundations“) - lecture, held on March 27, 2003 in connection with the 3. Foreign Countries Evening at the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg. In this lecture not only were the basics of Liechtenstein’s Law on Foundations described, but also some current issues.
• "Aktuelle Rechtsfragen des liechtensteinischen Stiftungsrechts" (“Current Issues in Liechtenstein Law on Foundations”) – public lecture, held on Nov. 4, 2003 in FL-Gamprin (organizer: Liechtenstein-Institut)

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