Companies active on the market and considering contractual decisions are being confronted with a practice-based phenomenon of which the legal classification is still largely unclear: the change of control clauses. These are provisions in contractual agreements in which specific alteration rights, in most cases the right of termination, are granted to one contract party in the event of a change of control in the other party. This examination considers the question of whether the German legal system disposes of appropriate standards that offer contract parties the necessary legal security when applying the change of control clauses.