The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports (as do many other papers) that Theo Müller is going to leave Germany for Switzerland, in order to avoid inheritance tax when he leaves his business to his children. The business is a family business, Müller Milch, that has done very well – it’s well known in Britain for Müllerice, Müllerlite and its TV advertising, slightly different from the German ads. To quote the English site:

bq. It’s a fair bet that when yogurt loving Ludwig Müller first established his little Bavarian village dairy back in 1896, he could scarcely have imagined the staggering success it was to become. For today his grandson, Theo, runs a business which last year turned over £625 million and employed 2,400 people.

It’s not only Germany that makes it expensive to leave a company to heirs. But Switzerland, Austria and Italy don’t charge inheritance tax in this situation.

The German inheritance tax system is being challenged in the courts as unconstitutional. If it is changed, it will be even harder on companies than it is today, when companies are treated more favourably than individuals.

Here’s an article in English about the owner of the Stollwerck chocolate company.

Delia Venables mentions a website at the University of Genoa Law Faculty called Legal Links in the Web. The project is supervised by Professor Maurizio Lupoi.

bq. It says that “a group of law students search the World Wide Web continuously for new sites and maintains the database in proper shape.” You can start with just about any country and then drill down to the main legal resources.

It is worth searching. I immediately found the Südtiroler Bürgernetz (having been translating some stuff from that area) and its law links. But there are also 182 taxation links. I have not spent long enough here to understand the organization of the site, but it looks as if there are internal links so you can reach links by more than one path.

A recent query on a mailing list: why are remedies and jurisdiction so often mistranslated into German? (They don’t mean Rechtsbehelf and Rechtsprechung). Here are the two sample sentences (thanks to Nina):

bq. The laws of the State of Minnesota will govern the validity, construction,
performance, enforcement and remedies of or relating to this Agreement.

bq The distribution of this Prospectus and
the offering of the Shares may be restricted in certain jurisdictions.

I suspect that one translation will not do for every situation. In the second example here, I suppose one could say Staaten (states) or even Ländern. It’s true that a jurisdiction in this meaning is a territory with its own legal system, which means every single state in the USA and the USA itself, and means that in the UK there are three jurisdictions. But that doesn’t alter the fact that Ländern or Staaten would work here.

Part of the problem is that many people don’t even know what the German terms mean. Our students in Erlangen were often unable to define Rechtsprechung in English because they didn’t know what it meant in German, to my surprise (it means case law / court decisions).

Rechtsbehelfe are either 1) Rechtsmittel – appeals to a higher court (Berufung, Revision, Beschwerde) or 2) [nameless] – appeals on the same level (Einspruch, Widerspruch, Erinnerung, Gegenvorstellung)
I think I would call the whole lot appeals.

Remedies, also called relief or redress, are what you want a first-instance court to give you. The Oxford Dictionary of Law says

bq. Any of the methods available at law for the enforcement, protection, or recovery of rights or for obtaining redress for their infringement.

A common-law remedy is damages. Equitable remedies are an injunction or a decree of specific performance (inter alia).

Possible translations, depending on the context, are Klagebegehren, gerichtliche Abhilfe, Rechtsschutz, or Entschädigung. Rechtsbehelf sounds wrong, at least in most examples. Romain also gives Rechtsverwirklichung and Heilmittel. Concrete examples are really needed to discuss this.

Dietl translates equitable remedies as Mittel des Rechtsschutzes nach equity-Recht.

Jurisdiction can mean an area with a legal system, in which case Gerichtshoheit may sometimes work as a translation, but it can also mean competence: a court may have jurisdiction over a case (Zuständigkeit).

The California Lawyer Magazine holds an Extreme Advocacy Contest. The problem is to argue a seemingly ridiculous point so as to convince your audience.

The winner, Blair Hoffmann, argued that the same lawyer should represent both sides on appeal. Others argued that the moon is made of green cheese, people should walk on all fours, and Queen Elizabeth is the reigning monarch of the USA. The competition was judged by Alex Kozinski, a judge on the Ninth Circuit.

bq. Having the same attorney represent both parties (1) enhances the quality of the advocacy, (2) is fairer, and (3) is more efficient. I do not advocate that the same attorney must represent both parties-on occasion multiple attorneys might be useful-but courts should permit, even encourage, a single attorney to represent both sides. Ethical obligations, properly understood, do not stand in the way.

(from Denise Howell at Bag & Baggage).

le sofa blogger, under the heading Heute wollen wir mal nicht pingelig sein (Let’s not be too fussy today), links to a Guardian article by A.L. Kennedy called Mr Blair’s blood count. The article appeared in a very good German translation by Matthias Fienbork in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung today (available online only at a price).

The blogger, Peter Praschl, is unhappy at A.L.Kennedy’s use of metaphor in the original English. Kennedy refers to 92,811 pints of blood ‘on Blair’s hands’ (the translator uses ‘kleben’). Praschl then quotes another ‘mixed metaphor’:

bq. “Obviously, we shouldn’t take the phrase “blood on his hands” terribly literally, because that wouldn’t be fair – Blair’s only our prime minister, sitting at the centre of a complex and sophisticated network of advisers and in possession of global influence and serious investment capital.” Sie kann es also wirklich nicht.

I wonder about this. I know when texts are translated into German, it’s necessary to be much more careful with metaphors. Does ‘kleben’ sound odd in German (because such a large quantity of blood can’t be ‘on your hands’)? (Praschl: ‘Bin schon gespannt, ob ich im nächsten Urlaub beim Schwimmen denken werde, dass das Meer an meinen Händen klebt.’) If it does, maybe the translation should have been freer? I wonder what other translators into German think about this?

The translation looks good to me. It did strike me that the irony didn’t come across:

bq. Of course, it’s tricky to establish the true levels of civilian injury and death in Iraq, due to it being a very big place and looking all the same because of the sand. Estimates of the completely dead vary between 37,137 and the much more comfortable 6,118. Your average person contains around eight pints of blood, but Iraqis have suffered various medical difficulties caused by starvation, stress and speaking Arabic, so let’s guess there are seven pints in each Iraqi adult. And many of the casualties – say 3,000 – will actually have been kiddies, whom we’ll average out at three pints each.

Note those words and phrases: tricky; due to it being; because of the sand; your average person contains; kiddies; whom we’ll average out. Here is the German:

bq. Das Ausmaß der zivilen Opfer im Irak läßt sich verständlicherweise nicht genau errechnen, weil das Land so groß ist und wegen des Sandes überall gleich aussieht. Schätzungen der korrekten Todesopfer schwanken zwischen 37137 und der sehr viel beruhigenderen Zahl 6118. Der menschliche Körper enthält im Schnitt viereinhalb Liter Blut. Da die Iraker aber (aufgrund von Hunger und Streß und weil sie Arabisch sprechen) diverse gesundheitliche Probleme hatten, sollte man vielleicht vier Liter pro Erwachsenen berechnen. Und viele Opfer (sagen wir: dreitausend) waren Kinder, bei denen wir 1,7 Liter ansetzen.

It’s not completely gone, and it may be that so much irony would not be acceptable in the German press.

An article in the Guardian states that the middle class cost Britain £14bn per year. The article is actually based on a survey done by two scientists at the University of Keele (not to be confused with the University of Kiel). Professor Susanne Karstedt and Stephen Farrell carried out a survey:

bq. They quizzed 4,000 people aged 25-65 in England and Wales and western Germany to see how many admitted white collar dishonesty. Germans outstripped the English and Welsh in all but one kind of crime: they were less likely to keep change given in error.

Statistics are given. Perhaps the Germans were just more honest?