rescission

noun · Anfechtung

Anfechtung, the attack on a contract flawed at its making, mistake, deceit or duress, void from the very beginning under § 142 Abs. 1 BGB. Rücktritt is the breach exit and unwinds only from now on, and the engines reach for it, moving the defect from the contract’s birth to its performance.

Which translation, when

Anfechtungthe formation attack, § 119 BGB for mistake, § 123 BGB for deceit or unlawful threat, effect ex tunc, § 142 Abs. 1 BGB, sharp deadlines, § 121 and § 124 BGB.

Rücktrittthe performance exit, § 323 BGB, answering a breach and creating a restitution relationship rather than erasing the contract. The right word only where rescission is used loosely for termination for breach.

Why

English rescission undoes a contract for a defect in how it was made, misrepresentation, mistake, duress, and puts the parties back at the start. German law reaches the result through Anfechtung, but on its own terms: the grounds are enumerated, § 119 BGB for a mistake in the declaration, § 123 BGB for deceit and duress, the effect is radical, § 142 Abs. 1 BGB deems the contract void from the outset, and the clock is short, § 121 BGB demands avoidance without culpable delay for mistake, § 124 BGB allows a year from discovery for deceit. Rücktritt lives on the other side of formation, § 323 BGB, it answers a breach and it does not erase, it converts, §§ 346 ff. BGB. So rescission rendered as Rücktritt has quietly moved the complaint from how the contract was made to how it was performed, a different ground, a different deadline, a different effect.

Typical mistakes

Aufhebung points elsewhere, to the consensual Aufhebungsvertrag or to the damages remedy of culpa in contrahendo, either way not to the one-sided avoidance the rescission letter meant.
Rücktritt wegen Täuschung mixes the regimes, deceit opens the Anfechtung of § 123 BGB and the one-year window of § 124 BGB, not the breach machinery.
The deadlines travel badly, § 121 BGB expects avoidance for mistake unverzüglich, without culpable delay, and an English limitation reflex will sleep through it.

What matters

Post-completion disputes over a company sale are the natural habitat: the buyer says the accounts were false and writes to rescind. In German that letter is an Anfechtungserklärung under § 123 BGB, striking the deal from the record, or it is a Rücktritt and merely reverses it, and the choice fixes the deadline, the ground to be proven and whether the contract ever existed.

Authority

§ 119 BGB
§ 123 BGB
§ 142 Abs. 1 BGB
§ 121 BGB
§ 124 BGB
§ 323 BGB

What the machine misses

Engines send rescission to the wrong shelf, the output says Aufhebung or Rücktritt, both words for ending a valid contract, and the void-from-birth effect the English word carried is gone. The German reader sees a party stepping back from a deal, the English writer meant that the deal, properly seen, was never there.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

to rescind the contract	den Vertrag anfechten
rescission for misrepresentation	Anfechtung wegen arglistiger Täuschung
the contract was rescinded	der Vertrag wurde angefochten
notice of rescission	die Anfechtungserklärung

More notes on these sections

misrepresentation arglistige Täuschung

termination Kündigung

time is of the essence Fixgeschäft