fiduciary duty
noun · Treuepflicht
Treuepflicht, the corporate duty of loyalty, with the Sorgfaltspflicht of § 93 AktG and § 43 GmbHG as its statutory sibling for care. Treuhänderische Pflicht is the reflex rendering and points at trust administration, a German corporate lawyer reads it and reaches for the English original.
Which translation, when
Why
English company law wraps loyalty and care into the fiduciary package, German law never built the package. The care half is codified, § 93 Abs. 1 AktG demands die Sorgfalt eines ordentlichen und gewissenhaften Geschäftsleiters, § 43 Abs. 1 GmbHG mirrors it for the Geschäftsführer, and the business judgment rule is written into § 93 Abs. 1 Satz 2 AktG. The loyalty half runs under the name Treuepflicht, derived from the Organstellung and from § 242 BGB rather than spelled out in one section. So fiduciary duty translates by splitting, Treuepflicht for loyalty, Sorgfaltspflicht for care, and treuhänderische Pflicht, the word-for-word rendering, belongs to actual Treuhand administration, a Treuhänder managing assets for another. A German reader met with treuhänderische Pflichten des Geschäftsführers hears property being held for someone, not an organ owing loyalty to its company, and the one distinction German liability practice leans on, safe harbour for care but not for loyalty, has no place left to stand.
Typical mistakes
- Treuhänderische Pflicht is the literal shadow, at home where someone actually administers assets as Treuhänder, in a governance text it reads as translation residue.
- Fiduziarisch exists in German and does not help, it lives in property arrangements, fiduziarische Sicherheiten, and does not name directors’ duties.
- The German pair is policed differently, care meets the business judgment safe harbour, § 93 Abs. 1 Satz 2 AktG, loyalty does not, so folding both into one fiduciary word blurs a line German liability practice draws sharply.
What matters
Directors’ duties advice for a German subsidiary is the standard scene: the English memo speaks of the managing director’s fiduciary duties, the German version needs the pair, Sorgfaltspflicht, § 43 Abs. 1 GmbHG, and Treuepflicht. Written as treuhänderische Pflichten the memo drifts towards trust law, and the safe harbour question, business judgment for care but never for loyalty, becomes invisible.
What the machine misses
Fiduciary duty returns from the engines as treuhänderische Pflicht almost by reflex, the adjective translated, the doctrine lost. German corporate law distributes the content across Treuepflicht and Sorgfaltspflicht, neither contains treuhänderisch, and the output plants trust-administration vocabulary in a boardroom document, where the German reader starts looking for assets held for third parties that the deal never mentioned.
Examples
| fiduciary duty | Treuepflicht |
| breach of fiduciary duty | Verletzung der Treuepflicht |
| duty of care | Sorgfaltspflicht |
| the directors’ fiduciary duties | die Treue- und Sorgfaltspflichten der Geschäftsführung |