Pisko, Oskar

Pisko, the son of a lawyer, attended secondary school in Vienna and then studied law at the University of Vienna, where he became Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1898. He worked in the judicial service beginning in 1897, and passed the judges’ examination in 1899, after which he worked as a judge and Landesgerichtsrat (judge of a county court) until 1918. He also was a lecturer for Austrian commercial law at the Wiener Handelsakademie (Vienna Business School). In 1909 he habilitated as private lecturer for commercial law at the University of Vienna with the paper “Das Unternehmen als Gegenstand des Rechtsverkehrs”. Nine years later he became associate professor for commercial and exchange law and received the title of full professor in 1921. In 1924 he became full professor for civil law. Among other things, he also was a member of the Staatsprüfungskommission (commission for state exams) and the Richteramtsprüfungskommission (commission for judges’ exams), as well as of the Kommission für das Lehramt an höheren Handelsschulen (commission for the teaching profession at higher commercial schools).

Because of his Jewish heritage the ministry of education put him on leave as of April 22nd, 1938, and shortly afterwards he was retired. Pisko was taken ill several months later and passed away in December 1939 as a result of this illness.

Pisko had a significant impact on the Austrian legal practice through his work on Staub’s commentary on the General Code of Commercial Law for Austria as well as through commenting on essential parts of the Klang commentary on the General Civil Code.

Among his most famous works are “Die beschränkte Haftung des Einzelkaufmannes” (1910), “Entwurf eines Handelsgesetzbuches” (1920) and “Handelsgesetze als Quelle des bürgerlichen Rechts. Ein Beitrag zur Lehre von der Analogie“ (1935).