On 16 August 2023, the Federal Government published the draft bill for a law to strengthen Germany as a forum for litigation by introducing commercial courts and English in litigations (Justizstandort-Stärkungsgesetz). The DIS had solicited its members’ views on the ministry’s prior draft bill and provided its input to the ministry based thereon (DIS Statement).
We are pleased that the government draft bill has taken up many of the DIS’ suggestions (DIS Statement). For example, Commercial Courts will also have jurisdiction over certain B2C corporate disputes (section 119b(1) GVG-E; DIS Statement, p. 3). The parties no longer have to explicitly choose the language of the proceedings (section 184a(3) GVG-E; DIS Statement, p. 6). Interveners can no longer force the continuation of the proceedings in German (section 184a(4) GVG-E; DIS Statement, p. 7) and are no longer specifically protected if they are proficient in English anyway (section 616 (1) ZPO-E; DIS Statement, p. 7). Not all English-language decisions are to be translated and published in full (section 617 ZPO-E; DIS Statement, p. 7). If the Federal Supreme Court does not hear cases in English, the appellant does not have to pay translation costs (no. 9005(7) KV GKG-E; DIS Statement, p. 7). The law is to be evaluated at a specified point in time after having come into force (government draft bill, pp. 23 et seq.; DIS Statement, p. 8).
We thank our members for the fruitful exchange and will continue to work on strengthening Germany as a dispute resolution location. The Justizstandort-Stärkungsgesetz was a topic of the BMJ/DIS Conference in Karlsruhe on 29 June 2023 and will also be taken up again during the Berlin Dispute Resolution Days.
Reinmar Wolff