[inigyou]

They have to, because German society is extremely litigious and based on finding loopholes in rules.

You know how some religious groups will string a rope between two houses, count it as a roof as long as they're within a certain horizontal distance of it, so they can follow the rope on occasions when the religion says they have to stay inside, and they think God enjoys them finding these loopholes?

Germany is like that, but with lawsuits. If anyone with money finds a technicality to sue you on, they will. So you have to be extremely liability averse if you want to be successful in business. Also, liability is almost always unlimited. You can be bankrupted by a single bad lawsuit.

[rickdeckard]

No idea what's your source on this, but I see you're spanning quite some "rope" from

a.) a global company in the car-industry being cautious of exposing ANY risk-surface in a product because every issue making it to the field doesn't just bear the risk of very expensive recalls/fines but may also put people's ACTUAL lives in danger, to

b.) the country Germany and its whole society

> If anyone with money finds a technicality to sue you on, they will.

In the car-industry you don't need anyone with money to sue you. If you ship a car which is found to endanger participants of traffic, your company may not recover from the aftermath for years...

[treszkai]

What do you base this information on? I live in Germany and have no idea what you're talking about.

[deanishe]

Same. It doesn't sound at all familiar, but Germans are a relatively litigious bunch (so many have legal insurance). Suing your neighbour because their cigarette smoke wafts into your kitchen. That sort of thing.

But "unlimited liabilities" gives entirely the wrong impression. German courts do not award punitive damages, and fees are generally capped below that amount in dispute.

[inigyou]

Actual damages are unlimited.