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Recently established Commercial Courts are creating new litigation opportunities for international businesses operating in Germany. While the Commercial Court in Munich is already operational, the Frankfurt (a.M.) Commercial Court is set to launch shortly. To mark the occasion, judges from the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt (a.M.) introduced clients and lawyers to the new forums for resolving commercial disputes at an event hosted by Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in late June.

The following article summarises the main developments and opportunities.

Introduction and background

With the implementation of the Act to Strengthen the Forum for Litigation (the “Act”), a new German law, which took effect in April 2025, Germany aims to strengthen its attractiveness as a forum for commercial disputes. Among other key innovations, the Act offers German Federal States an option to establish new Commercial Courts at one of their respective Higher Regional Courts. These new Commercial Courts permit a single appeal stage, potentially streamlining and short-cutting the appeals process, and also offer parties the possibility of conducting court proceedings in the English language. The objective of the newly implemented Act is clear: to offer international players an alternative to arbitration courts in Germany. In order to form an attractive and competitive forum for international commercial litigation, the rules of procedure for the Commercial Courts are closely modelled on arbitration rules.

The first Commercial Courts already have taken up their work. The key features of the Act are summarised below.

Commercial courts

An (explicit or implied) agreement between the litigating parties establishes the exclusive jurisdiction of the respective Commercial Court. The Commercial Courts, as courts of first instance, have jurisdiction for dispute values in excess of EUR 500,000. Their subject matter jurisdiction is extensive, since they deal with:

• commercial disputes between two or more parties;
• disputes regarding the acquisition of a company or shares of a company; and
• disputes between an organisation and members of its governing body or members of the board.

But, the state legislators can limit the jurisdiction of the state’s Commercial Court to certain subject areas, introducing a specialization between the different Commercial Courts. Already some Federal States have announced the specialisation of their respective Commercial Courts following their specific focus as a business location. For example, the Berlin Commercial Court will deal with construction and architectural law, while Bremen focuses on logistics, space, hydrogen and civil aviation technology. The Commercial Court in Frankfurt (a.M.) broadly aims to deal with commercial matters. Munich, on the other hand, will focus on disputes in a supply chain and between a company and members of its management body or supervisory board.

Proceedings in front of the Commercial Courts offer the following additional features in comparison to ordinary first instance courts:

• a meeting to determine the organisation and course of the proceedings;
• if mutually agreed, a transcript; and
• judgments that are subject to just one appeal stage, and where permission for that appeal is always granted.

Short duration of proceedings and appeal stages

The newly implemented process in front of the Commercial Courts only has two stages (first instance and appeal) and permission to appeal is always given. It is interesting to note that, prior to the introduction of the Act, a prototype Commercial Court was established in Stuttgart. Over the course of the last 4.5 years, this court experienced an average duration of proceedings of 6.5 months and the appeal rate was below 10%. These numbers suggest that disputes in front of the Commercial Courts could come to an end in a quicker fashion than in regular state and arbitration proceedings.

English as new procedural language

English can now optionally be used as procedural language in front of the Commercial Courts. The use of English as the procedural language requires an agreement between the parties.

This opportunity can be seen as a step towards further enhancing the already highly internationalized commercial sector and gives international parties the chance to handle complex commercial litigation in English at high level German state courts. Before, an oral hearing in English was possible only under certain circumstances, but written submissions had to be in German. Under the Act, this has changed to allow proceedings to be conducted entirely in English.

Conclusion, status quo and outlook

The reform brings possibilities and new opportunities especially for international parties dealing with complex commercial litigation in Germany. The implementation of English as procedural language and the material focus of Higher Regional Courts on commercial litigation open the door to the internationalization of the German judicial system and offers a real alternative to arbitration proceedings.

The Commercial Courts of Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg are already active and the Commercial Court in Munich was established on 1 June 2025. Other federal states will introduce their Commercial Courts over the course of the year, including the Commercial Court in Frankfurt (a.M.), which will take up its work on 1 July 2025.

It follows that, as of today, corporates should always consider including a jurisdiction agreement in their German law-governed contracts giving a specific Commercial Court exclusive jurisdiction. Especially so, if the contracting parties wish to avoid arbitration but still benefit from fast proceedings in front of (specialized) state courts in the English language.

The main potential advantages of proceedings in the Commercial Courts – in comparison to arbitration proceedings – are:

• cost reduction (court costs are calculated on the basis of the amount in dispute, which may not exceed EUR 30 million).
• state courts have extensive options for collecting evidence (in particular, compulsory enforcement).

That said, the potential weaknesses of the Commercial Courts should be considered in any given context:

• at present, the new Commercial Courts have limited existing experience, especially in comparison to arbitration courts which are well established. There is potential for teething issues while the new system develops.
• there is a risk of potentially overloading the courts. As appeals of Commercial Courts’ decisions are always permitted to the Federal Supreme Court, it is possible that the Federal Supreme Court (which already has to deal with a number of extensive cases) may be faced with an avalanche of appeals.