execution

noun · Unterzeichnung

Unterzeichnung when the contract is being signed, Vollstreckung when a judgment is being enforced, and never Ausführung for the signing, that word means performance. Execution wears three hats in English, and the machine reliably grabs the wrong one for the signature block.

Which translation, when

Unterzeichnungthe signing sense, execution of the agreement, duly executed. Where statutory written form applies the anchor is § 126 BGB, the parties’ own signatures on the document, and executed in two counterparts reads in zweifacher Ausfertigung unterzeichnet.

Vollstreckungthe enforcement sense, execution of a judgment, the Zwangsvollstreckung of §§ 704 ff. ZPO. A different hat entirely, and the object usually gives it away, contracts are signed, judgments are enforced.

Why

Execution does three jobs in English legal usage, the signing of a document, the performance of an obligation and the enforcement of a judgment, and German has a separate word for each, Unterzeichnung, Erfüllung or Ausführung, Vollstreckung. The traffic accident happens at the signature block: duly executed means duly signed, and where German law prescribes written form, § 126 BGB, that means the parties’ own signatures on the document itself, while ordnungsgemäß ausgeführt, the reflex rendering, asserts that the contract has been performed, a statement about a different point in the contract’s life and one nobody at the signing table can honestly make. The enforcement hat causes less trouble because the object gives it away, execution of the judgment is Zwangsvollstreckung, §§ 704 ff. ZPO, but it explains why Exekution, alive in Austrian legal German, sounds archaic or lethal to a German reader and should stay out of the text.

Typical mistakes

Ordnungsgemäß ausgeführt for duly executed reports performance where the English text reported signing, the German reader sees a completed contract at the moment it is being born.
Exekution is Austrian procedure and German gallows, in a German-law document the enforcement word is Zwangsvollstreckung and the signing word is Unterzeichnung.
Execution date is the Datum der Unterzeichnung, not der Ausführung, and a term sheet that confuses the two has moved every deadline that runs from signing.

What matters

Signature blocks and closing agendas put the word to the test: this Agreement has been duly executed by the parties reads dieser Vertrag ist von den Parteien ordnungsgemäß unterzeichnet worden, § 126 BGB where form is prescribed. The Ausführung version claims performance on day one, and a German reader checking conditions precedent finds the contract declaring itself already performed.

Authority

§ 126 BGB
§§ 704 ff. ZPO

What the machine misses

Execution splits the engines by hat and they grab the busiest one, Ausführung, performance, even at the signature block, so duly executed arrives as ordnungsgemäß ausgeführt. The German sentence now certifies that the contract has been carried out on the day it was signed, a claim no closing agenda supports, and the reader is left deciding whether the drafter meant the pen or the performance.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

duly executed	ordnungsgemäß unterzeichnet
execution of this agreement	die Unterzeichnung dieses Vertrages
executed in two counterparts	in zweifacher Ausfertigung unterzeichnet
execution of the judgment	die Vollstreckung des Urteils

More notes on these sections

title Eigentum

deed Deed

witness Zeuge