Causation as a condition for liability for breach of contract under German civil law

Introduction: the Civil Code of Germany is of great importance not only as a source of civil law of Germany, but also as a source, which had a great influence on the development of the key institution of civil law - the institution of civil liability, therefore, the author of the work set the goal to investigate causation as a condition of liability for breach of contract under the laws of Germany. Methods: the methodological framework for the study is a set of methods of scientific knowledge, among which the main ones are the methods of system, analysis and comparative law. Results: based on the conducted research, it was found that in Germany, cause-and-effect relationship is one of the elements of the set of facts that serves as the basis for bringing a person to civil liability for violation of the contract; the study shows that the approach to defining the concept and establishing the presence of a causal relationship in Germany is fundamentally different from that adopted in the Russian jurisprudence. Conclusions: based on the theoretical analysis, it is concluded that there are different approaches to determining the cause-and-effect relationship depending on the type of contractual obligation violated and the type of civil liability; a two-step algorithm for recognizing the existence of the causal relationship is established, and the cause of the adverse property consequences of the offense is the behavior of the person not only from the position of a specific situation, which is typical and adequate for any other civil offense.