The institution of retention of title is one of the most popular forms of payment security in civil law. The purpose of a retention of title is to protect the seller in the event of the buyer's insolvency. However, it can only be applied to movable property. It is a popular form of se-curity in several European countries, but particularly in the Federal Republic of Germany, which has developed a considerable body of case law on retention of title.
The thesis first explains the concept of retention of title, its legal nature and its effects. It also describes its creation and its termination.
For the most part, the basic form of reservation of title is regulated by law in most countries. However, over the years, and with the resulting rapid economic growth, it has become ap-parent that the basic form does not provide sufficient security, and derivative forms of reten-tion of title have evolved from the basic form through practice. The thesis describes all the derivative forms that are currently in use.
Since the aim of the thesis is to compare the reservation of title in Slovenia and Germany, it is further briefly explained how its legal nature and effects are understood by the German legal system. The emphasis is on the legislative and theoretical comparison, since German law alre-ady has the reservation fairly well established, whereas Slovenian law is only just emerging from German legal theory and practice. This is best illustrated in the case of insolvency proce-edings. In the German system, a number of cases have led to the development of certain rules for both seller's and buyer's bankruptcy and enforcement. In each case, a brief description of how each country (Slovenia and Germany) deals with the problem is given.
Finally, the whole is explained by means of various case law examples, from which it is possi-ble to see how the institution of reservation of title behaves in certain complex cases and how the courts have developed any of its specific forms.
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