Community of interests

An interest group ( IG for short ) is a contractual association of different persons or companies based on a common interest. It is an umbrella term ; a club (e.g. music club or sports club), a professional association or a non-profit organization can be based on an interest group. Loose combinations of people such as music projects or citizens' groups can also represent a community of interests.

In order to represent an interest group on a legal level, an interest group can represent its interests. The representation of interests is only to be equated with an interest group if all members of the interest group form the interest group. As a rule, however, the community of interests is much larger than the representation, as it encompasses the entire community. It would also be difficult to imagine that an interest group, which can consist of several thousand members, appears as a whole in court; To this end, an interest group (consisting of a few people) would be called up to represent the interest group and protect its interests.

Interest groups are often organized in the form of a civil society (GbR), but as an internal society .