jurisdiction

Which translation, when

Why

One English word does three jobs, and German has a word for each. A jurisdiction clause allocates competence, the German instruments are the Gerichtsstandsvereinbarung of § 38 ZPO and, for a chosen court inside the EU, Art. 25 of the Brussels Ia Regulation, and the operative German words are Zuständigkeit and Gerichtsstand. Gerichtsbarkeit sits one level up, the judicial power of the state itself, the word that matters when a sovereign waives immunity or when the text speaks of the courts as an institution. And where English says in any jurisdiction it is not talking about courts at all, it is counting countries, Rechtsordnungen. The three are not interchangeable, a clause that submits the parties to the ausschließliche Gerichtsbarkeit of the courts of Frankfurt has used the sovereignty word for a competence question, a German lawyer will still guess what was meant, and guessing is what the clause existed to prevent.

Typical mistakes

• Ausschließliche Gerichtsbarkeit in a forum clause is the machine’s phrase, German drafting says ausschließlicher Gerichtsstand or ausschließliche Zuständigkeit, and the sovereignty word marks the text as unchecked.
• Jurisdiktion exists in German and helps nobody, it hovers between the senses just as the English word does, and neither the ZPO nor the GVG uses it.
• Sich der Gerichtsbarkeit unterwerfen belongs to states and immunity, in a commercial contract the parties agree a Gerichtsstand, they do not surrender sovereignty.

What matters

Forum clauses at the back of the contract decide where every later dispute lives: the courts of Frankfurt shall have exclusive jurisdiction needs ausschließliche Zuständigkeit or an ausschließlicher Gerichtsstand, § 38 ZPO, Art. 25 Brüssel Ia. The sovereignty word in that sentence does not void the clause, a court will construe it, but it hands the other side an argument and the drafter an explanation to write.

Examples