Pursuant to Section 7 (1) of the Crafts Code, a natural or legal person or a partnership is entered in the Register of Craftsmen as the owner of a business in a craft requiring a license if the craft business manager meets the requirements for entry in the Register of Craftsmen for the craft to be practiced or a craft related to it.

This includes the skilled crafts manager being permanently employed, holding the title of master craftsman for the craft to be practiced or providing evidence of a corresponding qualification and being in a position to manage the business responsibly from a skilled crafts perspective in accordance with his contractual position in the company. This requires constant familiarity with the business operations, which can only be maintained through constant contact with the business and direct contact in terms of time and space. This means that the operations manager must be able to instruct the people working in the company during normal working hours and actually carry out the supervisory tasks and management powers incumbent upon him. He must monitor the progress and execution of the work on all working days during regular working hours and intervene to direct and correct as often as necessary. In doing so, he cannot limit himself to merely checking the results of the work. (BVerwG, GewArch. 1994, 172)

According to established case law, a plant manager must be legally and actually capable of comprehensive technical plant management in a comparable manner to the independent master craftsman in a sole tradesman's business due to the legal position granted to him by contract, and must hold the sole dominant position in the craftsman's sense. (BVerwG, judgment of 16.04.1991-1 C 50/88, OVG Rhineland-Palatinate, judgment of 05.01.1993)