Kleine Unternehmen: Schutz und Interessenausgleich im Machtgefüge zwischen Arbeitnehmern, Verbrauchern und Großunternehmen.

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Alexander Stöhr
• Subject Area: Private Law
• Term: from 2018 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 409322087

Under the law, small businesses are almost always treated as employer or merchant respectively, although they fall not cleanly into the dichotomies of employer - employee or consumer - merchant. This situation is taken as an occasion to fundamentally examine the protection of small business by the law and to create an appropriate balance in the power relation between employees, consumers and large businesses. On this basis, regulatory proposals, argumentation patterns and interpretations of the relevant regulations shall be developed.First the basics are discussed in an interdisciplinary approach embracing the various fields of law. In this context, the economic background of small businesses will be illuminated, in order to give sound reasons for their need for legal protection. In the part devoted to the history it will be explored how the legal protection of small businesses has developed over time. The next section discusses the implementation of the protection of small businesses. The first, general part of this section explores the legal obligations and boundaries in legislation and jurisdiction. Three approaches are distinguished in this respect, which at the same time demand and bound the protection of small businesses: The constitution, economic considerations and justice. The results gained in the general part are then applied to selected areas of law.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants