Capital Investment Law

We are your contact regarding all legal questions about capital investments.

Since 1994 already we are spe­cial­ized in legal ad­vice of cap­ital in­vestors and had great achieve­ments through­out. We ad­vise com­pet­ent, ex­per­i­enced and on a par with in­vestors to target-​orientedly en­force their claims. We ad­vise private in­vestors as well as in­sti­tu­tional in­vestors. In do­ing so, we feel the re­spons­ib­il­ity to work for the es­tab­lish­ment of a spot­less and trans­par­ent cap­ital market.

We take on the following services for you:

• In­tens­ive eval­u­ation of cap­ital mar­ket products (closed end funds, bonds, par­ti­cip­a­tion rights, stocks, life in­sur­ances etc.)
• En­force­ment of pe­cu­ni­ary claims due to ter­min­a­tion, re­voc­a­tion, pro­spectus li­ab­il­ity and false in­vest­ment advisory
• Fil­ing of claims within in­solv­ency proceedings
• Func­tion as joint rep­res­ent­at­ive of hold­ers of bonds and par­ti­cip­a­tion rights
• Mem­ber­ship on boards of creditors
• Con­sulta­tion con­cern­ing fiscal spe­cial­ties in con­junc­tion with the cap­ital investment
• Con­sulta­tion of reput­able ini­ti­at­ors dur­ing cre­ation, iden­ti­fic­a­tion and sale of de­cent in­vest­ment products

Model Proceedings

Stock­hold­ers and cap­ital in­vestors who have been harmed by false or poor in­form­a­tion or by in­cor­rect pro­spect­uses have the chance to en­force their rights within model pro­ceed­ings to ob­tain com­pens­a­tion. This is reg­u­lated by the Ger­man Act on Ex­em­plary Pro­ceed­ings in Cap­ital Mar­ket Dis­putes (“Kapitalanleger-​Musterverfahren“, or „KapMuG“) which is ef­fect­ive since 2005. It is ap­plic­able to all cases where in­vestors have sus­tained dam­ages with cap­ital in­vest­ments be­cause of in­cor­rect, mis­lead­ing or not provided information.

In model pro­ceed­ings the Higher Re­gional Court in charge de­cides re­gard­ing ques­tions of cent­ral im­port­ance. It is par­tic­u­lar, that the reg­u­lar trial courts are bound by these de­cisions. That bares cru­cial advantages.

Among the first ten model pro­ceed­ings that were filed after the Act on Ex­em­plary Pro­ceed­ings in Cap­ital Mar­ket Dis­putes had be­come ef­fect­ive in 2005, six have been lit­ig­ated by Schirp & Part­ner. Fur­ther­more, the first pos­it­ive de­cision in a model pro­ceed­ing in fa­vor of the cap­ital in­vestors – ap­proved by the BGH – was won by us as well.

Universally valid Preliminary Decisions

Be­fore com­ing into ef­fect of the KapMuG, Ger­man civil pro­ced­ure law did not al­low for model pro­ceed­ings. Even in dis­putes with, to some ex­tent, many thou­sand con­cerned, each party had to file their claim sep­ar­ately. The mere fa­cil­it­ies gran­ted were, that courts could com­bine those cases for joint de­cision and hearing.

Since 2005 cap­ital in­vestors be­ne­fit from the fact that Higher Re­gional Courts are now able to de­cide on cent­ral ques­tions with uni­ver­sally val­id­a­tion. The res­ult­ing model de­cisions are bind­ing for all those in­volved and also ap­ply to plaintiffs who did not take part in the model pro­ceed­ing itself.

Under which circumstances are Model Proceedings possible?

Still pre­vails, that every­one harmed has to, ac­cord­ing to claims amount and kind, file an in­di­vidual suit be­fore mu­ni­cipal or re­gional court. Only af­ter­wards it is pos­sible, with suit­able cases, to file for a so-​called pe­ti­tion for de­term­in­a­tion in a model pro­ceed­ing to have cent­ral ques­tions de­cided upon by the Higher Re­gional Court. To make a model pro­ceed­ing li­cit, within a time span of four months at least ten plaintiffs have to file for such a pe­ti­tion for de­term­in­a­tion in a model pro­ceed­ing. Costs for these pro­ceed­ings are borne by all plaintiffs to­gether. The ori­ginal pro­ceed­ings are sus­pen­ded un­til it is de­cided upon the model proceeding.

Financial Advantages of Model Proceedings

The pos­sib­il­ity of model pro­ceed­ings is a cru­cial im­prove­ment for the chances of in­vestors’ ac­tions. Be­cause cost risk is dis­trib­uted among all plaintiffs and be­cause the model pro­ceed­ing is held cent­rally, bring­ing of proof for de­faults and mis­takes of the sued com­pan­ies be­fore court is sim­pli­fied. By this the prob­ab­il­ity that claims for dam­ages fail is lowered. Ad­di­tion­ally, it gets easier to or­der costly ex­pert­ise due to con­joint financing.