Corporate Liability – Dogmatic Reconstruction of the Tortious Liability of Corporate Entities

公司和其他公司实体的责任是德国侵权法中最具争议的话题之一，其核心条款早在19世纪末就已经形成，并且在概念上是严格的个人主义。最近的侵权诉讼，例如与所谓的柴油丑闻有关的诉讼，再次说明了这种方法的弱点。在此背景下，笔者在论文中对法人团体侵权责任的正当性提出了一种新的教条式的论证方法。为此，我首先分析了公司责任的历史发展，并解释了公司责任的现状，包括许多阻碍其有效应用的不一致之处。在法学、经济学和比较法的见解基础上，我发展了各种方法来教条式地重建公司责任法。我的出发点是公司直接责任和间接责任的区别。在直接公司责任的情况下，公司本身是侵权义务的对象，而间接公司责任是基于对个别公司经理或雇员的侵权义务的违反。根据我的概念，直接公司责任可以通过两种方式建立，一种是通过对人类行为、过错、知识等的归咎，另一种是作为真正的组织责任，其中责任的参照点是公司作为一个整体。我的中心论点之一是，尽管§§823 ff有个人主义的概念。在BGB中，公司责任可以被构建为直接公司责任，其程度远比之前假设的要大。在我看来，这也适用于故意侵权，例如在柴油案件中发挥核心作用的《英国刑法》第826条。公司直接责任的扩大和有效性的提高不仅可以通过一致的责任区分，还可以通过基于责任规范的归因方法，这是我在比较法方法等的帮助下开发的。此外，借鉴法律和经济学的见解，我深入探讨了侵权责任中所谓的个人主义要素（如故意和过失）的终极目的，并表明——归结为各自的核心——它们也可以应用于作为组织的公司。为此，笔者阐述了客观过失概念的构成要件，并在此基础上提出了民事侵权法的客观故意概念，以区别于刑法的故意主义。然后，我将不同的方法结合成一个区分的公司侵权责任教条概念，我相信这也可以作为欧洲侵权法进一步统一的典范。

The liability of corporations and other corporate entities is one of the most controversial topics of German tort law, the central provisions of which were already formulated at the end of the 19th century and are strictly individualistic in conception. Recent tort litigation, e.g.in connection with the so-called diesel scandal, has once again illustrated the weaknesses of this approach. Against this background, I develop in my habilitation thesis a new dogmatic approach to the justification of the tortious liability of corporate bodies. To this end, I first analyse the historical development and explain the current state of corporate liability, including numerous inconsistencies that prevent its effective application. On the basis of insights from law and economics and comparative law, I then develop various approaches for a dogmatic reconstruction of corporate liability law. My starting point is the distinction between direct and indirect corporate liability. While in the case of direct corporate liability the corporation itself is the addressee of tortious duties, indirect corporate liability is based on the breach of duties directed at individual corporate managers or employees. According to my conception, direct corporate liability can be established in two ways, either through imputation of human conduct, fault, knowledge, etc., or as genuine organisational liability, where the reference point for liability is the corporation as a whole. One of my central theses is that despite the individualistic conception of §§ 823 ff. BGB, corporate liability can be structured as direct corporate liability to a far greater extent than previously assumed. In my opinion, this also applies to intentional torts, e.g. under § 826 BGB, which played a central role in the diesel cases. The expansion and increased effectiveness of direct corporate liability becomes possible not only by a consistent differentiation of duties, but also by a liability norm-based attribution approach, which I develop with the help of comparative law methods, among others. Furthermore, drawing on insights from law and economics, I deal intensively with the telos of supposedly individualistic elements of tort liability such as intent and negligence and show that – reduced to their respective core – they can also be applied to companies as organisations. To this end, I elaborate the essential elements of the objective concept of negligence and develop an objective concept of intent for civil tort law in distinction to the criminal law doctrine of intent. I then combine the different approaches into a differentiated dogmatic concept of corporate tort liability, which I believe can also serve as a model for the further unification of European tort law.