bankruptcy
noun · Insolvenz
Insolvenz, one word for the one modern procedure. Konkurs, the machine’s frequent offer, has been dead law since 1999, and a German text that says Konkursverfahren dates itself. The English split between corporate insolvency and personal bankruptcy has no German mirror, the InsO runs both.
Which translation, when
Why
German insolvency law was rebuilt in 1999, the Konkursordnung and the Vergleichsordnung died together and the Insolvenzordnung replaced them with one procedure for everyone. So the vocabulary is unified where English splits it, bankruptcy for individuals, liquidation and administration for companies, all of it is the Insolvenzverfahren, and the offices collapse too, administrator, liquidator and trustee in bankruptcy are one German official, the Insolvenzverwalter. Two features surprise the English reader. Überschuldung, § 19 InsO, makes balance-sheet insolvency itself an opening ground for legal entities, not merely a warning sign. And § 15a InsO turns filing into a duty, the managers of an insolvent GmbH must apply without culpable delay, at the latest three weeks after Zahlungsunfähigkeit and six after Überschuldung, on pain of criminal liability, a hard statutory clock where English law thinks in wrongful-trading liability. A translation that says Konkurs misses all of this twice over, the word names a repealed regime and signals that the text predates the law it is supposed to describe.
Typical mistakes
- Konkurs dates the document, the Konkursordnung died in 1999, current German is Insolvenz, and a Konkursverwalter reads like a fax number in the signature block.
- Administrator, liquidator and trustee in bankruptcy all collapse into the Insolvenzverwalter, the Sachwalter of an Eigenverwaltung aside, §§ 270 ff. InsO, one office where England staffs three, so titles translate by function, not one to one.
- § 15a InsO is the clock English instincts miss, filing is a duty of the managers, three weeks from Zahlungsunfähigkeit, six from Überschuldung, criminally sanctioned, not a strategic option.
What matters
Boardroom advice for a struggling German subsidiary runs on a clock: the English memo weighs wrongful trading and timing, the German answer is § 15a InsO, the Geschäftsführer must file, without culpable delay, three weeks from illiquidity, six from balance-sheet insolvency. The translated clause on the bankruptcy of a party is the easy part, im Falle der Insolvenz einer Partei, the hard part is telling the board that in Germany the filing decision was never theirs to time.
What the machine misses
Bankruptcy still triggers Konkurs in machine output, a word German law retired in 1999, and the document dates itself in one noun. The modern vocabulary is Insolvenz throughout, one procedure, one Verwalter where English staffs three offices, and the reader of the Konkurs version spends the first paragraph wondering which decade the drafting comes from.
Examples
| bankruptcy proceedings | das Insolvenzverfahren |
| the trustee in bankruptcy | der Insolvenzverwalter |
| to file for bankruptcy | einen Insolvenzantrag stellen |
| on the insolvency of either party | im Falle der Insolvenz einer Partei |
More notes on these sections
wrongful trading Insolvenzverschleppung