08.12.2021 – 11:00
Hamburg Scientific Foundation
Hamburg (OTS)
The Hamburg Scientific Foundation today presented Dr. Antonia Sommerfeld for her dissertation “AGB Reform and Legal Flight. The Impact of Legal Flight by Companies on Improving Ideas with respect to General Terms and Conditions in Commercial Contracts”, written at the University of Hamburg. Doctor. Eckhard Neumann, President of the Hamburg Scientific Foundation, will present the prize winners with a prize of 10,000 euros in the presence of the Senator for Science, Research, Equal Opportunities and Districts.
The legal-political and scientific debate on the control of general terms and conditions (AGBs) in corporate transactions is aimed at taking legislative action to create legal certainty for companies and thus also to strengthen the competitiveness of German law at the international level. Can the general terms and conditions law be reformed in such a way that companies in commercial contracts do not run away from foreign legal systems? Is legislative reform of the General Terms and Conditions Act really necessary, and how does it affect medium-sized and large companies? With her work on Legal Flight, Antonia Sommerfeld engages in a fiery legal political debate and analyzes the potential impacts of reform on companies of various sizes.
Eckhard Neumann: “Dr Antonia Sommerfeld has earned our Werner von Mele Award 2021 for her thorough and reflective work on the controversial issue of legal flight from German companies. It also analyzes the need for legal action in entrepreneurial business transactions. Thus it makes an important contribution to the ongoing reform debate. This work demonstrates the importance of legal expertise beyond the narrow legal field – just like our founder Werner von Mel worked as a lawyer and beyond. ”
to the award winner
Antonia Sommerfeld (* 1991 in Hamburg) studied law in Hamburg and Aix-en-Provence and worked as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. A research stay took him to the University of Cambridge. He is currently a trainee attorney at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg. His dissertation “AGB Reform and Legal Flight. The Significance of Legal Flight for the Reform Debate in Common Terms and Conditions in Corporate Legal Transactions” was published in 2021 in the series “Studies on Foreign and International Private Law” by Verlag Mohr Siebek, Tübingen Was. ,
Antonia Sommerfeld: “I was interested in: Do German companies really run into foreign legal systems because of the national general terms and conditions law through choice of law in their commercial contracts? In other general terms and conditions disclaimer clauses How liberal is the control of the legal system? Which companies would benefit from the ‘liberalisation’ reform What harm – and what would be the consequences – for the design of the German general terms and conditions law? My research shows that different entrepreneurial contracts It is understandable to distinguish between. The proportion of small and medium-sized companies in Germany is 99.4 percent. If so, a more liberal control of general terms and conditions seems appropriate only in international contracts and contracts with large companies . ”
The award winner is available for interview.
in the name of award
Doctor. Hamburg Senator Werner von Melle (1853–1937) of the High School Authority and First Mayor, campaigned for decades to establish the University of Hamburg in 1919. Lawyers, journalists and politicians also thought of establishing a foundation to promote science in Hamburg.
For the Hamburg Scientific Foundation
The Hamburg Scientific Foundation has been committed to science in Hamburg since 1907. As an independent non-profit foundation, it promotes their maintenance and dissemination in the Hanseatic city. Since 2011, it has been awarding the Werner von Melle Prize every two years to scientists who have written an outstanding dissertation on a socially important topic at the University of Hamburg. The prize is endowed with 10,000 Euros. The Werner von Melle Prize is a joint project between the Hamburg Scientific Foundation and the Edmund Semmers Foundation. More info here: www.hws.org
Press Contact:
Dr. Johannes Gerhardtow
Hamburg Scientific Foundation
0151/40523883
[email protected]
Original content: Hamburgische Wissenschaftliche Stiftung, news transmitted by aktuell
