Anstaltslast

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anstaltslast is a term of German public law and describes the statutory or statutory responsibility of the public institution for its legally independent public organizational forms. This legal institution represents the carrier's obligation to equip its institution with the financial resources necessary to fulfill its tasks and thus to keep it functional for the duration of its existence.

If the public institution (federal, state or local government) decides to provide economic services through legally independent companies in the form of an institution under public law, it must ensure that these institutions or companies are able to perform their tasks. This state liability in general follows from the fact that the state performs its duties in the field of economy. The liability system based on institutional liability and guarantor liability results from the specific legal form of the institution under public law. As a rule, this legal institution of the Anstaltslast exists in addition to the guarantor liability for all federal, state and communal institutions under public law . Since July 2001, the Anstaltslast has been modified at the state direct Landesbanken (insofar as they operate competitive business) and the communal savings banks so that there is no claim against the sponsor for the provision of financial resources (e.g. § 7 Para. Sparkassengesetz NRW). The guarantor liability was completely abolished for these credit institutions. The Anstaltslast only applies to development banks such as the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau and the state development institutions .

In the case of direct federal credit institutions, the institution responsible for the institutional burden is the federal government, in the case of the Landesbanks it is their shareholders (federal states and / or regional savings bank associations) and in the case of savings banks it is usually individual or a plurality of municipalities.

discussion

Both legal institutions, Anstaltslast and guarantor liability, have been the subject of controversial discussions at Sparkassen and Landesbanken since 1998 in Germany between the private banking industry and the public banking sector. This dispute took place at the EU competition authorities in Brussels. The focus was on the question of whether the savings banks and Landesbanken in Germany, which are in competition with credit institutions organized under private law - benefited from these legal institutions - will have competitive advantages. In simple terms, the private banking industry assumed that the institutions would de facto assume an unlimited guarantee for the respective Sparkasse or Landesbank through these legal institutions. This in turn would lead to an extremely positive assessment of this banking group on the capital market. The extremely good long-term ratings of the Landesbanken were used as proof of this, with consequences for cheaper refinancing.

decision

This dispute ended on July 17, 2001 with an understanding between the European Commission and the Federal Republic of Germany, the so-called Brussels Concordance . This agreement provided for the previous institutional burden to be replaced after a transition period of several years. The following were defined as the relevant principles:

  • The financial relationship between the public institution and the public credit institution must not differ from a normal beneficial owner relationship based on market economy principles, such as that between a private shareholder and a company in a limited liability company.
  • Any obligation on the part of the public institution to provide economic support to the public credit institution and any automatic economic support by the institution in favor of the public credit institution is excluded. There is no unlimited liability of the carrier for liabilities of the public credit institution. There is no letter of intent or guarantee to ensure the continued existence of the public credit institution.
  • The public credit institutions are subject to the same rules in the event of insolvency as private credit institutions, so that their creditors are placed on an equal footing with those of private credit institutions.

These principles were implemented in the state laws (e.g. savings bank laws) by the end of 2002, so that the savings banks and state banks are subject to the same competitive conditions with regard to these criteria as the banking industry organized under private law.

Services of general interest

This Brussels concordance has no impact on the institutional burden for the majority of the other federal, state or municipal institutions under public law, whose statutory / statutory tasks are federal administrative activities or municipal services of general interest and are therefore withdrawn from competition. For these institutions under public law, the legal institutions of Anstaltslast and guarantor liability continue to exist unchanged.