The life of humans is limited. So if the business or the shares of a business lie in the hands of a human person, the death of that person entails the mechanism of succession. The law of succession occurs in the life of a company if the owner or the shareholders themselves are not legal entities but humans who die. Company law and the law of succession are therefore strongly connected with private ownership of companies. Typically, ownership of the enterprise or the shares of a company do not offer only economic claims but infl uence and power to determine the future development of the company. Company law and the law of succession is therefore the fi eld of privately owned companies and enterprises. One of the most important examples of privately owned companies is family businesses.