Compliance

In today’s business world, compliance is a factor of ever increasing importance.

Both nationally and internationally, the business environment is subject to increasing regulation of economic, fiscal and financial aspects. Accounting departments, Human Resources departments and management may constantly face the problem of having to deal with legal grey areas or what, according to the letter of the law, may or may not be unlawful activities. This problem needs to be addressed by adequate compliance rules and procedures.

Pursuant to the German Act on Regulatory Offences (Administrative Offences Act, Ordnungswidrigkeitengesetz, OWiG), namely the sections 9, 30, and 130 OWiG, companies and their executive officers are obliged to make sure that they do not provide a platform for criminal activities, and that their employees comply with the law. This leads to certain duties to implement effective organizational and supervisory regimes. Failure to do so may lead to administrative fines levied against the companies and the persons responsible, and even to criminal convictions. To prevent this, is the primary goal of compliance.

With this in mind, it is imperative to minimize risks, to optimize existing control mechanisms and procedures, and to improve their efficiency.

Legal compliance risks can be found mainly in the field of tax law, competition law and antitrust law, corporate law, copyright and IP law, and data protection and privacy legislation.

We aim to minimize such risks in close cooperation with our clients.

Contact:

Dr. Kay Wagner
Fabian Laucken