Legislation on assignment is uncompromising

With the organisation, preparation and implementation of trade fairs, exhibitions, meetings and congresses organisers assume a pivotal role for their customers satisfaction and safety.

The law governing public assembly venues in the shape of the Model Ordinance on Public Assembly Venues 2005 (MVStättV) leaves no room for legal interpretation when it comes to the safety of visitors to events. In the first instance the responsibility for all technical security and organisational matters lies not with the organiser of the event, however, but with the venue operator, who is liable for security at the event and compliance with the relevant regulations.
As a rule, the Model Ordinance on Public Assembly Venues assumes that the venue is operated by one and the same company in respect of its technical operation and building maintenance as well as its use and marketing. If this is not so, in case of doubt the operator must be established. Generally speaking, operators in the legal sense are the owner, lessee, permanent tenant or the manager of the venue.
But where event implementation and marketing is assigned to one company and technical maintenance and operation to another, the operation and management function is divided into two. It is therefore legally possible for there to be an operator to operate and maintain the building and technical appointments and an operator/manager for the event operations as such. Where operational duties are split up in this way it is highly advisable to set out the individual obligations arising from the Ordinance on Public Assembly Venues very precisely in contractual form. After all, in the event of an infringement of the operating regulations in the MVStättV fines of up to EUR 500,000 can be imposed.
Moreover, the operator's responsibilities additionally contain a civil-law and penal-law component. Whoever culpably harms a third party as a result of having caused safety hazards or of being responsible for them for any other reason, without having taken necessary precautions against the imminent risks, can be held to account for infringement of the liability for safety on the premises. The operators of the venue are therefore obliged to do everything necessary that might reasonably be expected of them to ensure that people do not come to grief while participating in and attending events.
The regulation in Section 38 Paragraph 5 of the Model Ordinance on Public Assembly Venues allows the operator the possibility of assigning at least part of the onus to a third party. The assignment of obligations must be regulated in a written agreement, in other words by contract. This is mandatory as the agreement is otherwise not legally effective. However, the contract and business conditions may not confine themselves merely to assigning liability for the premises or the operator's obligations en bloc. The individual obligations that are to be assigned to the organiser must be defined precisely. Otherwise there is a danger of the agreement being inoperative. In addition to the duties relating to operation set forth in Sections 31 to 43, duties may also include those prescribed in the planning permission and licensing notice for the intended operation. With individual obligations such as the assessment of event-specific fire hazards, it is important to note that these are non-transferable operating duties. It is the intention of the issuer of the ordinance that only the operator be deemed able to gauge, on the basis of the structural fire protection and the information that the organiser is obliged to obtain on the reaction to fire by materials introduced into the building, whether the event in the operator's venue gives rise to a heightened fire hazard. Consequently the issuer of the ordinance names only the venue operator in the code of regulatory offences as the addressee for potential fines. Volker Löhr

m+a report Nr.6 / 2006 vom 22.09.2006
m+a report vom 22. September 2006