Liability in subcontracting processes in the European construction sector : Germany

This country report identifies and outlines regulation on liability in subcontracting processes in Germany. It is based on an analysis of secondary literary sources of information and on the results of interviews with key players in the field. The introduction briefly describes the broad political, legal and economic context in which the national laws on ‘joint and several liability’ in subcontracting have been developed. Joint and several liability refers to cases where two or more people enter into an obligation together, and where the claimant can recover the full obligation from any one of them; the cooperating parties are then left to decide their respective contributions between themselves.