In this time of lockdown, the question has arisen as to how to reduce employees’ hours and pay them less. I’m jjust going to touch on the terminology here – anyone who wants to know more can do a websearch nowadays!

There has been some comment in the UK press about the German system of Kurzarbeit (short-time work). From the Financial Times:

Kurzarbeit: a German export most of Europe wants to buy

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https://www.ft.com/content/927794b2-6b70-11ea-89df-41bea055720b

The tool is Kurzarbeit, or shorter work-time, a policy that has been copied by so many other countries that one economist called it one of Germany’s “most successful exports”. Under the scheme, companies hit by a downturn can send their workers home, or radically reduce their hours, and the state will replace a large part of their lost income.

The UK has now introduced a similar scheme. It allows works to be furloughed but kept on the payroll. I knew furlough only as leave for soldiers, but apparently it is used in the USA in this sense. Furlough is like garden leave, where an employee’s contract is terminated to a certain date and he or she continues to be on the payroll but may not work. It’s referred to as the coronavirus job retention scheme. A lot of law firm websites explain it, for instance Crossland Employment Solicitors.

A number of other countries use similar schemes, but I think Germany was the first. The FT thinks it works very well in a country like Germany which invests a lot in apprenticeships, so having trained their workers, they will not want to lose them. The German scheme was ramped up at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

In the USA, works who are furloughed are not likely to be paid 60% of their wages as in Germany, but they may retain health insurance and other benefits.

Some more vocabulary I have picked up recently from German daily coronavirus podcasts: der Impfling for the person being vaccinated, verimpfen to inject a substance.

A tweet from Scott Hanson @papascott:

The line grew to 5 people behind us, 2 of whom left when they learned there was no asparagus. 😂

Elsewhere I note that it took the virus crisis to make Germans give up cash.

Although we know about the abstraction principle in German contract law, we don’t often have to translate it.

Here is Markesinis on the principle:

We now come to what is one of the most intriguing peculiarities of German contract law. Indeed, Zweigert and Kötz, in their treatise, An Introduction to Comparative Law, p. 71, regard it as so distinctive as to argue that it gives the German legal system its characteristic style. … Many common lawyers, and indeed French lawyers,might be tempted to describe it more than just ‘distinctive’. ‘Un-necessary’ and ‘excessively abstract’ are words that have often been used; and not with(out) some justification.

German law notionally distinguishes between the legal transaction that creates the relationship of obligation (Verpflichtungsgeschäft) from (sic) the legal transaction which transfers, alters, extinguishes, or encumbers rights (Verfügungsgeschäft = disposition contract). This distinction is accompanied by an important sub-rule: the validity of the second transaction is independent from (sic) the validity of the first.The first tenet is known as the ‘principle of separation’ (Trennungsprinzip), while the second is referred to as the’principle of abstraction’ (Abstraktionsprinzip).

Basil S. Markesinis, Hannes Unberath, Angus Johnston, The German Law of Contract. A Comparative Treatise, 2nd ed. 2006, p. 27

Even the act of buying a newspaper, in German law, consists of two stages: the intention and the reciprocal handing over of paper and money.

The closest idea in English law is found in conveyancing, where the parties exchange contracts to buy/sell and some weeks later the property and payment are exchanged.

In my translation, the situation was that the Kausalgeschäft (= Verpflichtungsgeschäft) underlying a gift of money in return for a promise not to seek further payment was invalid, and so the gift was invalid too.

One way to do this would be to add a translator’s note explaining this peculiarity of German law. I decided to translate Kausalgeschäft as ‘underlying obligation’ and ‘obligational agreement’, adding ‘(a peculiarity of German law)’.

ProZ is often helpful here.  As long as you understand the German legal point, you can see which answers are helpful, just as when trying to find help in Dietl or Romain.