The Federal Ministry of Justice would like to enable German regional courts to conduct business processes with international participation entirely in English in the future.
In a key issues paper, which is exclusively available to FAZ objection, the ministry writes that the federal states should be given the power to select individual regional courts for this purpose.
So far, those involved in the process can already negotiate in English under certain conditions.
The statement of claim and judgment must always be written in German.
New senates at higher regional courts
Stephen Klenner
Editor FAZ objection.
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The background to the plans is Germany's competition with courts in other countries and private arbitral tribunals.
For large commercial matters, the paper provides for special senates in the first instance at the higher regional courts.
These "commercial courts" should become active above a certain amount in dispute with the consent of the parties to the dispute.
Similar to arbitral tribunals, the ministry would like to allow these special senates to record verbatim that the parties can read during the hearing.
In order to make German courts more attractive for international business processes, the paper also provides for better protection of trade secrets.
Their disclosure outside of the proceedings should be prohibited in the future from the filing of a lawsuit.
So far, civil judges have only been able to exclude the public from the hearing to protect such secrets.
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