Pönale Elemente im deutschen Privatrecht

Ina Ebert demonstrates that private penalties are certainly not unheard of in German private law. She shows that the necessity of implementing the standards of the Basic Law and German private law will increase the significance of private penalties in the future and makes a plea for viewing the Renaissance of the private penalty in German law not as a step backwards but rather as a conscious decision for a well-tried method for improving legal protection. In addition she calls for an open admission of the existence of penal legal institutions in German private law. In her opinion, this is necessary in the interest of a renewed convergence of legal dogmatics and legal practice and in order to find solutions for concrete legal problems which up to now had been thwarted by disguising private penalties as compensation payments.