Die Kollision vertraglicher Forderungen

One of the main characteristics of German civil law is that the fulfillment of every obligation can be enforced and every creditor can demand specific performance. When obligations collide though, i. e. the debtor cannot provide everything that he has promised to different creditors, the question arises who gets specific performance and who has to be content with damage compensation only. While the general rule (“Präventionsgrundsatz”) states that whoever comes first (i.e. achieves enforcement of specific performance) gets served first, this study shows that, under certain circumstances, one creditor must be preferred and thus only he can successfully claim specific performance, especially in cases where he has much higher interests in specific performance than another creditor.