AGB-Kontrolle. German courts review standard terms and conditions for fairness and strike out clauses that unreasonably disadvantage the other side — and they do it between businesses, not only against consumers. A German company cannot rely on having got a hard clause into its own paperwork. A court will read it and may simply remove it.
law
Taking evidence
Das Beweisverfahren. German courts take evidence in a structured process — documents, witnesses, court-appointed experts — and a case may be adjourned repeatedly while it runs. Speed is not a value the procedure optimises for.
Parental leave
Elternzeit. German parents may take up to three years of leave per child, with the job protected and dismissal prohibited for the duration. It may be split, shared between parents, and partly deferred until the child is eight.
The Magnuson-Moss Act
The 1975 federal warranty statute requires that consumer product warranties be written in plain language, be labelled full or limited, and be available for inspection before purchase. The law regulates the promise rather than the product.
The nine phases
Die Leistungsphasen. German building projects run through nine defined service phases, from basic evaluation through preliminary design, permit planning, execution planning, tendering, construction supervision and final documentation. Each phase has a defined output and a defined share of the fee. The sequence is in the fee ordinance itself.
Usury as a crime
Wucher. Usury is a criminal offence in Germany, not only a civil one. Taking grossly disproportionate advantage of someone’s weakness is prosecuted. The state treats an imbalanced bargain as a matter for the criminal courts.
Product liability
Produkthaftung. German product liability law makes a manufacturer liable for damage caused by a defective product regardless of fault. The obligation runs to the product itself, not to the care taken in making it.
Clarifying the facts
Sachverhaltsaufklärung. Clarification of the facts. German procedural law obliges a court to establish what actually happened before applying any rule to it, and the phase has its own name and its own stage in the judgment. The facts are settled first, as separate work.
The shop closing law
German shop opening hours were governed by federal law from 1956, and Sunday closing remains the rule across the country. Shops are shut. Not quiet — shut. A Sunday in a German town is a different kind of day, enforced by statute.
Contrary to good morals
Sittenwidrigkeit. Section 138 BGB voids a legal transaction that offends good morals, and specifically one where a party exploits another’s predicament, inexperience or weakness to obtain a conspicuously disproportionate advantage. A German contract can be void because the bargain was too one-sided. Not misrepresented, not coerced — just too unequal.