Prioritätsgrundsatz und Gläubigergleichbehandlung

German enforcement law is governed by two divergent principles: on the one hand, individual execution leads to the debtor's assets being distributed on a »first come, first served« basis, whereas on the other, insolvency law adheres to the pari passu principle. This fundamental contradiction has to this day not been systematically clarified. Individual enforcement's priority principle is lauded as a liberal way of distributing the debtor's assets while pari passu is declared as an exception to the rule in need of justification. Jan Felix Hoffmann seeks to disprove the idea that the priority principle is a materially just rule and develops an internationally adaptable system for both modes of execution. He takes European insolvency as well as French execution law, which is traditionally perceived as being wholly committed to pari passu, into consideration. The specific problem that occurs when a good is sold twice is likewise examined.