The Conference “Maintenance Instead of Compulsory Portion or Forced Heirship Towards a Reform of Mandatory Family Protection in the Law of Succession”

On 17 October 2025, the Faculty of Law hosted the conference delivered by Prof. Dr. Dr h.c. mult. Reinhard Zimmermann, Emeritus Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht, Hamburg  (Germany). Our colleague, a world-renowned scholar and an outstanding comparatist, gave a lecture entitled “Maintenance Instead of Compulsory Portion or Forced Heirship Towards a Reform of Mandatory Family Protection in the Law of Succession.”

During the lecture, several themes were discussed:

1. Basic feature of the law of succession; 2. Mandatory family protection in the law of succession; 3. Forced heirship in the French tradition; 4. Compulsory portion in the Austrian/German tradition; 5. The quest for flexibility; 6. Family provision in the tradition of the common law countries; 7. Freedom of testation; 8. Family property?;  9. Solidarity?; 10. Tradition?;  11. Business claims against the deceased; 12. Maintenance claims;  13. What do parents owe their children?; 14. Succession to family firms; 15. Fixed quota systems: fraught with problems.