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有争议的话题之一，其核心条款在世纪末就已经制定，并且在概念上是严格个人主义的。最近的侵权诉讼，e.g.in与所谓的柴油丑闻的联系，再次说明了这种方法的弱点。在此背景下，我在我的论文中发展了一种新的教条主义的方法来证明法人团体的侵权责任。为此，我首先分析了历史发展，并解释了公司责任的现状，包括许多不一致的地方，阻止其有效应用。在法律经济学和比较法的基础上，我发展了各种方法来教条地重建公司责任法。我的出发点是直接和间接公司责任之间的区别。在公司直接责任的情况下，公司本身是侵权责任的对象，而公司间接责任则是基于公司个别管理人员或雇员违反责任。根据我的概念，公司直接责任可以通过两种方式确立，要么通过对人的行为、过错、知情等的归责，或作为真正的组织责任，其中责任的参照点是整个公司。我的中心论点之一是，尽管有第823节及以后各节的个人主义概念。BGB，公司责任可以在比以前假设的更大程度上作为直接公司责任来构建。在我看来，这也适用于故意侵权行为，例如《德国联邦法典》第826条，该条在柴油案件中发挥了核心作用。公司直接责任的扩大和有效性的提高不仅可以通过一贯的责任区分，而且还可以通过基于责任规范的归属方法，我在比较法方法的帮助下开发了这种方法。此外，借鉴法律和经济学的见解，我深入处理的目的，所谓的个人主义要素的侵权责任，如故意和过失，并表明-减少到各自的核心-他们也可以适用于公司作为组织。为此，我阐述了客观过失概念的基本要素，并发展了一个客观的概念，目的是民事侵权法的区别于刑法的故意学说。然后，我联合收割机的不同方法，以区分教条的概念，公司侵权责任，我相信这也可以作为一个模式，为进一步统一欧洲侵权法。

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.