Gekauft ist gekauft, bought is bought. The consumer advice center in Hamburg uses the phrase for a basic rule of German shopping. A customer who buys something in a store has no legal right to bring it back because she no longer likes it. Einzelhändler sind beim Kauf in einem Ladengeschäft nicht verpflichtet, Waren zurückzunehmen. Retailers are not obliged to take back goods bought in a store. Many shops take goods back anyway. This is called Kulanz, goodwill, and the shop sets the conditions. It may give a voucher instead of cash, for example. Defective goods are a different matter. For purchases made online, the law gives the buyer 14 days to withdraw.
No Way Back From a Termination Agreement
A German employment relationship can end by mutual agreement, in an Aufhebungsvertrag. Once it is signed, it cannot simply be withdrawn. On 7 February 2019, the Federal Labor Court decided the case of a cleaner who had signed such an agreement in her own apartment. She said that she had been ill that day. The court held that the consumer right of withdrawal does not apply to these agreements, even when they are signed at home. It named one limit, the Gebot fairen Verhandelns, the requirement of fair negotiation. A side breaks it when it creates psychological pressure that makes a free and considered decision much harder, for example by deliberately exploiting an illness. On 24 February 2022, the same court set the boundary of that limit. An employer may offer the agreement for immediate signature and refuse time to think. The employee can always say no.
Peace During, Terms After
While a German collective wage agreement is in force, unions and employers may not strike or lock out over the matters it settles. This Friedenspflicht, the duty to keep the peace, is part of every such agreement, whether it is written down or not. It ends with the agreed term. In the metal and electrical industry, it ended at the end of October 2024. The Hessian broadcaster reported: Die Friedenspflicht endete nach Mitternacht. The peace duty ended after midnight. At several plants in Hesse, workers began warning strikes shortly after midnight. The old terms did not end with the old agreement. The Collective Agreements Act says: Nach Ablauf des Tarifvertrags gelten seine Rechtsnormen weiter, bis sie durch eine andere Abmachung ersetzt werden. After a collective agreement expires, its rules continue to apply until another agreement replaces them.
Beyond Amendment
The German Basic Law can be changed only openly. Article 79 requires a law das den Wortlaut des Grundgesetzes ausdrücklich ändert oder ergänzt, that expressly changes or adds to its wording. Such a law needs two thirds of the members of the Bundestag and two thirds of the votes of the Bundesrat. Some parts are closed even to that majority. Paragraph 3, the Ewigkeitsklausel or eternity clause, makes an amendment unzulässig, not permitted, if it touches the division of the federation into states, the basic participation of the states in making laws, or the principles laid down in Articles 1 and 20.
Kant on the False Promise
In his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten of 1785, Immanuel Kant tests his moral law on a few cases. In the second case, a man sieht sich durch Not gedrungen, Geld zu borgen. He finds himself forced by need to borrow money. He knows he cannot pay it back, and he is tempted to promise it anyway. Kant asks what would happen if this were a general law. Anyone in need could promise whatever came to mind, mit dem Vorsatz, es nicht zu halten, with the intention of not keeping it. Such a law würde das Versprechen und den Zweck, den man damit haben mag, selbst unmöglich machen. It would make the promise itself impossible, and also the purpose one may have with it. No one would believe that anything had been promised to him. People would laugh at all such statements als eitles Vorgeben, as empty pretense.
The Nuclear Agreement and Its Price
On 14 June 2000, the federal government and the energy companies agreed on ending nuclear power in Germany. The agreement is known as the Atomkonsens, the nuclear consensus. It was signed on 11 June 2001, and in 2002 it was secured in law. In 2010, a new government extended the running times of the plants. This became known as the Ausstieg aus dem Ausstieg, the exit from the exit. After the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, the government reversed course again. On 6 December 2016, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the new law was largely compatible with the Basic Law. But the companies had to be compensated. The court said that trust in the electricity quantities granted in 2002 deserved particular protection. Investments made in justified trust in the 2010 extension also had to be compensated. In 2021, the government and the four companies signed a contract. The companies received 2.428 billion euros, and in return they ended all lawsuits over the phase-out.
The state was free to change the agreement. The court made it pay for what the companies had relied on.
Twenty Years to the Day
On 27 February 1953, West Germany signed the Londoner Schuldenabkommen, the London Debt Agreement. It settled the pre-war debts of the German Reich, among them the Dawes and Young loans of the 1920s. One part was set aside. The interest arrears from the years after the war were to wait until a possible reunification. Germany was reunified on 3 October 1990, and the claims came back. The last payment was made on 3 October 2010, twenty years to the day later. German Wikipedia gives it as 69.9 million euros. A Protestant news service reported that 75 million euros were still on the books at the end of June 2010.
The Final Settlement
The treaty that settled the international side of German unification has finality in its name. It is the Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in bezug auf Deutschland, the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany. The two German states and France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States signed it in Moscow on 12 September 1990. It is regarded as taking the place of a peace treaty. Article 1 says that the external borders of united Germany werden am Tage des Inkrafttretens dieses Vertrags endgültig sein, will be final on the day the treaty enters into force. It also says that united Germany has no territorial claims against other states und wird solche auch nicht in Zukunft erheben, and will not raise any in the future either. On 14 November 1990, Germany and Poland signed a border treaty in Warsaw that confirmed the Oder-Neisse line as inviolable.
Prices for Public Contracts
Since 21 November 1953, a federal regulation has governed the prices of public contracts in Germany. It is called Verordnung PR Nr. 30/53. Its first rule is that market prices come first. Where no market price can be established, or where competition among suppliers is restricted, the state and the supplier may agree a cost-based price, a Selbstkostenpreis. Such a price must be based on the supplier’s appropriate costs. An annex sets out how to find them, the Leitsätze für die Preisermittlung auf Grund von Selbstkosten. Its chapters list the parts of the price one by one: materials, wages and other personnel costs, depreciation, interest, risks, and finally a calculated profit. The price authorities of the states may audit the price and inspect the supplier’s documents. A revised version took effect on 1 April 2022.
The Time Study
On 30 September 1924, the Reichsausschuß für Arbeitszeitermittlung, the Reich Committee for Determining Working Time, was founded. It is known by its initials, REFA. Its early task was to measure working time for cost calculations and for piece-rate work. REFA trained Zeitnehmer, time takers. By 1929 REFA had trained 1,650 time takers, and by 1943 about 12,000. The association still exists and still trains people in work-time study.