Litigation management.

Jurisdiction is primarily determined by the value in dispute. Since January 1, 2026, the Local Courts (Amtsgerichte) are responsible for values up to EUR 10,000; above that, the Regional Courts (Landgerichte) usually decide.

The right of audience (Postulationsfähigkeit) describes who is permitted to appear in court. Before the Local Court, parties can generally appear themselves; before the Regional Court, legal representation is mandatory – pleadings and motions must be submitted by a lawyer. In proceedings before the Local Court, parties can theoretically sue or defend themselves; in practice, however, this can lead to formal errors, missed deadlines, or insufficient submissions that decide the case.

Often, the claim is not clearly quantified or the prayer for relief is formulated unclearly, which can lead to inadmissibility or dismissal.

The court may only award what has been requested. A convincing set of facts does not help if the motion is legally or mathematically incorrectly drafted.

A submission is conclusive if – assuming all facts were true – the asserted claim legally exists. If this is missing, the case is lost without the taking of evidence.

In principle, each party must prove the facts from which it derives rights. Many lawsuits fail not on the law, but on the burden of proof.

For undisputed or low-conflict monetary claims, such as open invoices without serious objections.

State court litigation takes place before state courts on a statutory basis and is subject to fixed procedural rules, in particular the Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO). In contrast, arbitration requires a valid arbitration agreement between the parties and replaces state jurisdiction with a privately organized decision-making process. While a judge decides in state proceedings, the parties in arbitration select the arbitrators themselves, often with specific technical or industry-specific expertise.

Arbitration offers parties significantly greater flexibility in designing the proceedings, such as regarding the language of the proceedings, location, schedule, and taking of evidence. State court proceedings, on the other hand, are more formalized and less adaptable. Regarding duration, arbitration can be efficient, especially for complex or international matters, but it is not automatically faster than state proceedings, which can be extended through several instances.

A significant difference lies in costs and publicity. Arbitration is regularly more cost-intensive, as arbitrator fees and institutional fees are incurred in addition to legal fees. State court proceedings are comparatively less expensive, as the judiciary is state-funded. Court proceedings are generally public, while arbitration takes place privately and thus offers a high degree of confidentiality, which is particularly important in economically sensitive disputes.

Regarding legal remedies, both procedures differ considerably. Appeals and revisions are regularly available against judgments of state courts. Arbitral awards, however, are largely final and can only be set aside in narrow exceptional cases, such as serious procedural defects. An advantage of arbitration lies in international enforceability: arbitral awards are easier to enforce in many states than state judgments due to international conventions. Overall, an arbitral tribunal primarily offers confidentiality, flexibility, and international enforceability, while state court litigation is characterized by lower costs, formal legal certainty, and a full sequence of instances.

The Capital Investor Model Proceedings Act (KapMuG) bundles similar claims of many investors, for example in the case of incorrect capital market information, prospectus liability, or ad-hoc duty breaches. The goal is to clarify central legal and factual questions uniformly in a model proceeding to avoid contradictory decisions. Individual initial proceedings are stayed and continued after the conclusion of the model proceeding.

In court proceedings, billing according to the Lawyers' Remuneration Act (RVG) is the statutory minimum standard. Deviating remuneration agreements (e.g., hourly rates) are permissible, but may not fall below the statutory fees insofar as they concern recoverable costs in the cost assessment procedure. This means: even with an individual fee agreement, the cost burden of the losing party is regularly based on the RVG.

Yes. According to § 128a ZPO, the court can permit parties, representatives, or witnesses to participate in the oral hearing via video transmission. The prerequisite is a corresponding order or consent from the court. The online hearing replaces the physical appearance but maintains procedural principles; it is particularly relevant for supra-regional or international participants.

The court can order the personal appearance of a party, especially for the clarification of facts or discussion of a settlement. If a representative appears instead of the party, they must be equipped with a special power of attorney according to § 141 para. 3 ZPO, which expressly authorizes them to make declarations and conclude a settlement. If this is missing, the court can impose administrative measures or adjourn the hearing.

Earn-outs link a portion of the purchase price to the future development of the company, such as revenue, EBITDA, or KPI targets. Disputes often arise because the parties have different expectations regarding the controllability of the target figures, management after closing, and the economic interpretation of the metrics. Typical points of conflict include changes in business strategy by the buyer, shifting of costs or revenues, accounting and valuation issues, and unclear regulations regarding the seller's information and control rights. Additionally, earn-outs regularly run over several years, and external factors – market changes, investment decisions, or group-internal measures – can influence target achievement. Imprecise definitions and missing dispute resolution mechanisms therefore make earn-out regulations particularly prone to conflict.

Defending against a corporate law redemption requires early and tactically coordinated action, as redemption resolutions are often passed at short notice and executed immediately. The goal is to prevent facts from being created through resolutions, register filings, or new shareholder lists before a judicial clarification is possible. First, it must be checked whether the statutory requirements for redemption are actually met, particularly grounds for redemption, procedural requirements, and necessary majorities. In parallel, it should be assessed whether the redemption resolution must be challenged by way of interim legal protection to provisionally stop its execution or registration implementation. This is particularly relevant if voting rights are to be withdrawn, management powers changed, or new shareholder lists submitted as a result of the redemption. Since summary proceedings are often decided without an oral hearing, it is crucial that one's own view of things is presented to the court in a timely manner. Otherwise, there is a risk that the court will decide solely on the basis of the opponent's submission and irreversible consequences will occur, even if the redemption is later found to be unlawful.

The protective brief is not an offensive instrument, but a preventive means of defense. It ensures that the court does not only hear one side in summary proceedings and prevents corporate power shifts from being enforced solely through speed and surprise.

A protective brief serves to inform the court in advance about the counterarguments of the potentially affected party if it is expected that the opposing side will apply for interim legal protection. In summary proceedings – especially for injunctions – the court often decides without a prior hearing of the opposing side. The protective brief is intended to prevent exactly this or at least mitigate it.

The purpose of the protective brief is to make it clear to the court that the facts are disputed, legally complex, and not ready for decision in a unilateral proceeding. It can contribute to avoiding an ex-parte decision, gaining time for an orderly legal dispute, and reducing negotiation pressure.

In corporate law, the protective brief is particularly relevant for imminent:

• injunctions in connection with redemption resolutions,
• exclusions of voting rights or removals of managing directors,
• prohibitions of shareholder resolutions,
• measures for register blocking or commercial register filings,
• disputes over management or representation authority,
• conflicts arising from competition or loyalty duties between shareholders,
• disputes in connection with exit regulations, call options, and drag-along and tag-along rights.

Forensics and investigations are not an exceptional instrument in business life, but a strategic means of dispute resolution. They create transparency, reduce uncertainties, and contribute to legal decisions being based not solely on assertions, but on verifiable facts.

In commercial disputes, complex facts, internal processes, or suspicions are often at issue that cannot be understood solely from contracts or formal documents. This concerns, for example, conflicts in connection with M&A transactions, earn-out disputes, managing director or officer liability, competition and compliance violations, internal fraud allegations, or disputes between business partners.

In such constellations, the involvement of forensic specialists and investigators can be useful to create a resilient factual basis. Forensic investigations serve the structured clarification of economic, technical, or organizational processes, for example by analyzing payment flows, communication data, contract implementations, or internal decision-making processes. The goal is not the mere confirmation of an allegation, but an objective reconstruction of the actual events.

The findings obtained are then incorporated into the legal and procedural assessment. They can be decisive for substantiating or defending claims, developing evidence strategies, realistically assessing settlement margins, or showing courts that a matter is disputed, complex, or still in need of clarification. Especially in summary or interim proceedings, forensically supported submissions can help avoid premature decisions based on an uncertain factual basis.

Debt recovery and enforcement are particularly demanding legally when they go beyond the pure national standard case. Complexity arises especially in cross-border matters, multiple debtors, nested corporate structures, asset shifts, or enforcement from foreign titles. Questions of recognition and declaration of enforceability of foreign decisions, access to assets in different legal systems, or the coordination of parallel measures in several jurisdictions also significantly increase the legal requirements.

Added to this are constellations in which debtors specifically complicate enforcement measures, for example through asset shifting, situations close to insolvency, or the use of holding, trust, or special purpose vehicle structures. In such cases, a strategic interlocking of procedural action, international procedural law, and actual asset investigation is required to effectively enforce or secure claims.

Debt recovery is not a purely mechanical execution, but in complex or international cases a strategic legal enforcement in which legal, economic, and factual aspects must be brought together to achieve sustainable results.