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，其核心条款已经在19世纪末制定，在概念上完全是个人主义的。最近的侵权诉讼，例如与所谓的柴油丑闻有关的诉讼，再次表明了这种方法的弱点。在此背景下，我在我的自律性论文中提出了一种新的教条方法来证明法人侵权责任的正当性。为此，笔者首先对公司责任的历史发展进行了分析，并对公司责任的现状进行了解释，其中包括阻碍其有效运用的诸多不一致之处。在借鉴法经济学和比较法的研究成果的基础上，笔者提出了公司责任法教条化重构的各种途径。我的出发点是区分公司的直接责任和间接责任。在公司直接责任的情况下，公司本身是侵权责任的收件人，而间接公司责任的基础是针对个别公司经理或员工的违反义务。根据我的概念，公司直接责任可以通过两种方式来确定，一种是通过追究人的行为、过错、知识等，另一种是作为真正的组织责任，其中责任的参照点是整个公司。我的核心论点之一是，尽管有第823节以下的个人主义概念。BGB，公司负债可以被构建为直接公司负债，其程度远远超过之前的假设。在我看来，这也适用于故意侵权行为，例如根据第826 BGB条，它在DIESEL案件中发挥了核心作用。公司直接责任的扩展和有效性的提高不仅是因为对职责的一致区分，而且是通过基于责任规范的归责方法，这是我在比较法等方法的帮助下发展起来的。此外，借鉴法律和经济学的见解，我深入探讨了侵权责任中被认为是个人主义的要素，如故意和过失，并表明--归结到各自的核心--它们也可以适用于作为组织的公司。为此，笔者阐述了过失客观概念的构成要件，并提出了民事侵权行为法的客观故意概念，区别于刑法的故意说。然后，我将不同的方法结合在一起，形成了一个不同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.