The Non Profit Law Yearbook 2015/2016 is opened by two articles on fundamental issues of law relating to foundations.
The first article is the written version of the Hamburger Rede, the speech held by Jens Beckert at the Hamburger Tage Conference on the law of foundations and non-profit law 2015. Its topic is “Inheriting, Controlling and Donating”. Beckert questions the sociological significance of succession to wealth and its taxation and in so doing provides substantial food for thought in a legal debate which has not seldom been disassociated from the real conditions pertaining in society.
The second article has a sad background. Anatol Dutta unfurled the functions of mandatory inheritance law in his habilitation thesis “Why Inheritance Law?” from the perspective of legal science and comparative law and examined the circumvention of this law by the family foundation and forms of trusts for private use. Dutta was awarded the W. Rainer Walz Prize in 2014 for his thesis. Dieter Reuter held the laudatio at the time and prepared a comprehensive review which is now printed in this volume. On March 16, 2016, Dieter Reuter was killed during his daily stroll in a tragic road accident. Reuter made a decisive contribution to the law of associations and foundations. He was very closely associated with the Institution for Foundation Law and the Law of Non-Profit Organisations. In 2006 and 2007 he assumed the Institution’s management and organized the Hamburger Tage Conference on the law of foundations and non-profit law in 2006 and 2007 and held country sessions on foreign foundation law, he published the Non Profit Law Yearbook, supervised doctoral students at the Institute, and further evolved the Yearbook project.
In the public law part of the Yearbook, Ansgar Hense investigates the topic of “Partial reorganisation of funds for school and study grants in North Rhine-Westphalia through state law and agreements between the state and the church in 2014”.
In the section on civil law, Pascal Decker’s contribution is devoted to the subject of “Brand-building and competition law for foundations and NPOs” and stresses the increasing significance of this topic for entities that are not enterprises.
The article by Philipp Böwing-Schmalenbrock in the tax law section provides an overview of the “Latest jurisprudence of the German Federal Finance Court (BFH) on the law of donations and non-profit law” and Ingo Graffe, presents “Current developments of non-profit law from the perspective of the tax authorities”.
In the international part of this volume, Susanne Kalss presents the exciting creation of a new charitable foundation in Austria enabled through the “Federal Foundation and Fund Act” of 2015.
And finally, in their report on “Legislation, Jurisdiction and Administrative Orders on the Third Sector in Germany in 2015” Nils Krause and Florian Haase present a broad range of the most important developments in the Third Sector.
In the future, the Non Profit Law Yearbook will be focused on the lectures held at the Hamburger Tage Conference on foundation law and the law of non-profit organisations and will be provided to the conference attendees free of charge to document and consolidate the discussions held there. In addition, we will continue to deal with important topics in depth, including developments abroad, provide a reliable review of the past year and a comprehensive bibliography on non-profit law.
For more information on the Institute for Foundation Law and the Law of Non-Profit-Organizations click here.