This book represents a thoroughly revised and updated version of my Ph.D. thesis approved by the Law Faculty at Cambridge University in 2006. The entire process that has led to this book has occupied the better part of a decade, and the end result is a far cry from the original plan. The book is an attempt – and it cannot be more than that – to write about German law and English law in a manner designed to make the exposition accessible to readers from each of the two jurisdictions by taking account of their respective conceptual and terminological background. My own status as an outsider, being neither German nor English, will hopefully have contributed to a fair balance between the two. Obviously, my legal education and academic roots in Austria, with its proximity to Germany especially in the field of company law, meant that the true voyage of discovery for me started only when I was given the fascinating opportunity to explore English law at Cambridge University.

I owe a sincere debt of gratitude to Eilís Ferran, who took on the charge of being my Ph.D. supervisor – and a charge it must have been with a supervisee constantly venturing off to do things he was not supposed to do – and who subsequently masterminded the publication of the book with Cambridge University Press.