Category Archives: translation

Beck’sches Formularbuch Deutsch-Englisch

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Beck’sches Formularbuch Zivil-, Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensrecht (Buch + CD-ROM) Deutsch-Englisch DE-EN

The third edition of this quite useful tome came out in 2014. It has a CD-ROM. I have the 2007 edition and I must admit I’ve scarcely used it, but it appears a lot better than some other such works.

If you find a contract or form that you need, you will also find a bilingual list of vocabulary and notes. The notes are on the German law. There is no discussion of the choice of English terminology, although I can see I would not always use the same. My copy is over 1100 pages long. It might be worth getting hold of a second-hand copy, as there won’t have been massive changes, will there?

This recommendation came with the Kater Verlag newsletter. There, you can click through to the Kater-Scan, which gives a better impression of the contents. But Beck-Verlag also offers details plus Inhaltsverzeichnis and Leseprobe online (Harte Patronatserklärung: Hard Letter of Comfort!)

Sitz der Gesellschaft: company seat

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I seem never to have dealt with this problem in the blog. So I’ll quote myself on ProZ, where you can see others’ opinions too:

seat

Explanation:
I prefer seat, because it is understood in English and doesn’t give the incorrect impression that it is a street address (unlike ‘registered office’). It is unpopular with some translators because it is perceived as ‘translatorese’, but in legal translation you can’t just take the nearest potential equivalent just because it sounds English – because, after all, we’re talking about German law, not English law.
I agree that ‘domicile’ is a possibility, but I don’t think it’s so widely understood (and a German domicile is a city, but an English domicile is a jurisdiction, such as Germany or England and Wales or California). ‘Corporate headquarters’ seems a slightly different context to me.

Here’s another one, where the asker said:

Please do not reply with seat. It sounds very awkward to me.
I am translating it as headquarters but wondering why I can’t say location.

Don’t you just love it when someone tells you what answer they don’t want? And even Beate Luetzebaeck hates seat.

Actually, the term seat is not so uncommon in company-law contexts, for instance in seat theory (PDF); Sitztheorie).

At present, there are two contrasting conflict of law theories as regards the recognition of foreign
legal persons: the ‘incorporation’ theory and the ‘real seat’ theory. The ‘real seat’ theory probably
dates back to the middle of the nineteenth century. According to this theory, the law of the country
where the company has its ‘real’ seat (i.e. its management and control centre) is the law applicable to
company relationships.

People may not like the word seat, but registered office
strikes a really odd chord for me, since a registered office is an address, for instance an address for service, whereas Sitz is a town, for example the courts of that town.

The German text might be:

Sitz der Gesellschaft ist Hamburg.

You can’t write: The company’s registered office is Hamburg.

But you might write: The company’s registered office is in Hamburg.

An Act or a law?

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Perennial query (from a mailing list): Why is it OK to translate Bundeswahlgesetz as Federal Electoral Law while Umweltinformationsgesetz is Environmental Information Act?

(Actually, you can get the Federal Elections Act online now at www.cgerli.org).

The superficial answer is that some people insist on translating Gesetz in the name of an Act as law.

Act is the better term in both British and US contexts. Like some British lawyers, I capitalize Act in this sense, even outside titles, but this isn’t universal.

One argument given is that the procedure for passing a common-law Act is different from that for passing a German Gesetz. I don’t think the argument holds water.

A possible reason is that foreign lawyers are more familiar with the word law. That applies in other jurisdictions too, not just German. The word Act possibly frightens them off. Loi in French sounds like law and I gather Scandinavian languages have the same situation (lag/lov).

But law is just not the normal term in English.

I would use laws as a superordinate term for primary legislation (Acts/statutes) and secondary/delegated legislation (statutory orders). But legislation might work instead.

Beschwerde/appeal

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strafrechtsblogger (Konstantin Stern) has been continuing its series on Englisch für Strafverteidiger – English for criminal defence lawyers. I am sorry to appear to be picking on this, and I did like the post on Der Beschuldigte. There have been 19 posts on English so far – I may have missed some. But when it comes to Beschwerde, I feel my fingers reaching for the keyboard.

Die Beschwerde lässt sich mit complaint sowie grievance übersetzen.

Für das Einlegen der Beschwerde gibt es mehrere Möglichkeiten. Entweder wird es simpel mit to complain übersetzt, oder es wird aus den Verben to lodge, to file oder to make a und dem Substantiv complaint zusammengesetzt. Beispiel: to make a complaint.

One nice thing about these entries is that they are down-to-earth and simple. As soon as I start taking it apart, it will appear complex and confusing – possibly a reason I should never have been a teacher.

But this will not stop me. Still, at the outset, here’s my summary: I would translate Beschwerde as appeal, and if necessary add some more description. The word appeal is used fairly widely in English and will cover Berufung, Revision, Beschwerde and more, although if their specific meaning is important, more detail will be needed.

Now down to brass tacks:

1. Grievance is not appropriate, because it is part of general English, not legal terminology.

2. Here’s a definition of Beschwerde in German.

There are various kinds of Beschwerde, but they are never directed against judgments.

Robbers, Introduction to German Law, has: ‘request for relief from an administraive act; interlocutory appeal in civil proceedings’.

Dietl: Beschwerde 1. (als Rechtsmittel)ë appeal (gegen from)
auf Grund der Beschwerde des (als Rechtsmittel) … on an appeal by …
Das Rechtsmittel der Beschwerde findet gegen solche Entscheidungen statt, durch die ein das Verfahren betreffendes Gesuch zurückgewiesen ist.
“Beschwerde” is an appeal to the higher court from the dismissal of a motion (or application) concerning a procedural issue.

Romain: complaint (injustice, grievance to superior, etc), grievance, request for relief; remonstrance, appeal against an administrative act; interlocutory appeal, appeal from a court order (from interlocutory or final decisions in the form of an order and not judgment)

3. Finally, what is a complaint, in legal terms? The Oxford Dictionary of Law defines it as follows:

1. The document used to start certain types of criminal proceedings in a magistrates’ court, or the process of using such a document to start proceedings. 2. A formal allegation of a crime.

That rules complaint out as a translation of Beschwerde in England and Wales.
In the USA, according to Black’s Ninth, it can also mean ‘the initial pleading that starts a civil action’.

The form of certified translations

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Richard Schneider has posted a guide on how to prepare certified translations in Germany: Von Schuppen und Ösen. It’s in German but with illustrations.

Here’s a summary of the main headings

1. The stamp and signature should be blue rather than black. (I definitely use blue stamp ink, but agree it would make sense to do the signature in blue biro too. Then people can see immediately whether the translation is an original or a photocopy).

2. A round stamp is not prescribed, but looks more official: official stamps are usually round, and rectangular stamps are easier to copy.
(In Bavaria, the round stamp is in fact prescribed. It can get quite expensive when you think how long the translator’s title is).

3. Always attach a copy of the original text. (I usually do that, though it’s not always feasible. The courts don’t want it for internal use. But it covers you if you translate from a copy rather than the original, because the recipient can compare the copy with the original and see if you translated the right document. And if you do a translation of excerpts, you can use a highlighter to mark on the copy which bits you did or omitted).

4. Fold the pages over so the corners are staggered (see photo) – each then gets some blue ink on it from your stamp.

5. Add a stamp on the fold inside.

6. Bind the pages together so they can’t be separated. Use an Öszange (see picture). This is apparently an eyeletter punch. Alternatively, you can use a paper seal (Siegelstern; see pictures). (I sometimes use gummy paper, which I cut otu in a rectangle, and put the stamp on top of it. And sometimes I sew, with needle and thread).

(Richard Schneider seems thrilled with his punch. So was I when I first got one. The problem came when I sent off a set of punched translations and they passed through a machine at Deutsche Post, which ripped the translations to pieces, and I had to do the whole lot again. I have never used the device since.)

Economist on translation and the law

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An article in The Economist on the growing demand for legal translation: Translating and the law.

It envisages this as a good prospect for underworked lawyers:

Specialised “e-discovery” software helps lawyers cull the masses of electronic data. But in international deals and lawsuits, such software must be run by cultural and linguistic experts to make sure the correct search terms are used and the right information is ferreted out. Translation is still something that computers do badly much of the time, especially when the topic (a drug patent, say) is a difficult one full of technical details.

The many law students wondering if the rotten legal job market will ever improve should take note. The twin forces of globalisation and technology may put many mediocre lawyers out of business. But those who master languages and computers may find themselves in demand.

There’s nothing wrong with lawyers translating – I am a Germanist who became a solicitor and spent 20 years teaching legal translation, for which there was at the beginning little demand and where I had to teach myself. But I hope those lawyers with language skills get some kind of training on what translation and working with related software involve, and above all have experience.

The article originates in New York and the discovery problems in the USA are particularly great. I think the patent translator Steve Vitek spends a lot of time telling his clients which Japanese patent documentation needs looking at more closely. I tell clients or potential clients what statutes or judgments are available in translation on the Internet and whether I think the translation is reliable. That sort of thing requires experience.

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