News

The EU has adopted the thirteenth package of sanctions against Russia. In time for the second anniversary of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the representatives of the 27 EU member states have imposed additional sanctions against Russia. Around 200 individuals, companies and organisations are affected.

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At the beginning of the legislative period, the Federal Government announced a comprehensive reform of family law and set itself the goal of adapting family law to social reality and extensively modernising it.

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Oppenhoff advised the industrial insurance broker MRH Trowe on an upsizing of the existing unitranche financing to provide funding for the group’s next step of its growth story.

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Oppenhoff has advised the BMV Group on the accession of three further medium-sized building materials dealers. Last year, the law firm had already advised the BMV Group on its reorganisation and the takeover of the von den Hoff Group.

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Oppenhoff has advised KNDS N.V. on a cornerstone investment in connection with the listing of RENK Group AG at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. KNDS has acquired a 6.7 percent stake in RENK.

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Extensive and diverse reforms to family law were already announced in the coalition agree-ment between the SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and the FDP. These reform plans are now being specified in greater detail with regard to parentage and filiation law - Federal Minister of Justice Dr. Marco Buschmann presented two key issues papers in mid-January that contain concrete proposals for modernising family law.

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Oppenhoff has advised the AustriaEnergy Group on the expansion and structuring in two phases of the Joint Venture for HNH Energy in Chile, one of the world's largest Power-to-X projects for the production of green hydrogen and green ammonia with a potential aggregate capacity of 5GW of wind.

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Oppenhoff has once again comprehensively advised the EIC Fund on its German investments. This time, the EIC Fund invested together with Dr. Hans Riegel Holding GmbH (one of the two shareholder holding companies of the Haribo Group) and REWE in the Hamburg biotech start-up Infinite Roots. The investment was in the form of an equity investment under the "Horizon Europe Programme" as part of a second closing of the Series B financing round.

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Oppenhoff partner Dr. Nefail Berjasevic has been awarded the academic title of Honorary Professor by the University of Siegen. The prestigious award recognises his professional practice and, in particular, his outstanding achievements in teaching and research.

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CBAM, LkSG, CSRD, Deforestation Regulation: The year 2024 will continue to be characterized by ESG regulation. Companies will need to keep track of the many new obligations and incorporate them into their compliance systems in a timely manner. Below is an overview of the key issues.

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The 7th MaRisk Amendment specifies the handling of ESG risks in lending decisions. Borrowers must now provide information on potential ESG risks during the approval process.

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The New York Times recently filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI. The reason: possible copyright infringements through the use of millions of articles from the New York Times to train ChatGPT. This lawsuit gives cause to consider whether the unlawful processing of data in the design, training or operation phases of artificial intelligence (AI) systems requires that the models be retrained or whether alternative solutions are available

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State subsidies from EU member states are subject to EU state aid law (Art. 107 et seq. TFEU). According to this, state aid is generally prohibited as it can distort competition. It can only be justified in exceptional cases. State aid is therefore subject to a so-called "notification and standstill requirement". This means that state aid must be notified to the EU Commission by the member states and may only be implemented once the EU Commission has authorised it.

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Oppenhoff has advised MURA Deutschland GmbH on the sale of a light industrial property in Cologne comprising more than 14,000 square metres of hall and office space to Patron Capital and INBRIGHT. The complex of manufacturing, production, service and storage areas was built on a plot of land measuring over 13,000 square metres.

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The EU has adopted the twelfth package of sanctions against Russia. After several weeks of negotiations, the EU - in close cooperation with its G7 partners - has in particular imposed additional import and export bans against Russia, sanctioned more than 140 additional individuals and taken further measures to combat the circumvention of sanctions. Read Stephan Mueller and Mareike Heesing's article to find out what companies now need to bear in mind.

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The European legal framework for due diligence obligations in supply chains has been finalised. The EU member states and the EU Parliament's chief negotiators have agreed on key points for a directive on supply chain compliance (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive/ CSDDD or CS3D for short), which was still subject to approval by the Parliament and the mem-ber states.

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Find out more about our IT law & data protection practice group - now regularly summarised for you at a glance! Enjoy reading!

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In our last issue of this year's Focus on Labour Law you will find the usual overview of the most important labour court decisions of recent months, the minimum wage that will apply from 1 January 2024 and the social security calculation parameters that will apply next year.

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Oppenhoff elected Holger Hofmann (Public Commercial Law, Public Procurement Law) as an equity partner with effect from 1 January 2024. Alexandra Groth (Labour Law) was appointed partner and Dr Johannes Kaesbach (Labour Law) and Tobias Kollakowski (IT Law & Data Protection; Legal Tech) were promoted to junior partners.

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Cartels have long since ceased to be forged exclusively at highway service stations. Back in 2017, we highlighted the effects of digitalization on antitrust compliance in an article ("Antitrust law 4.0"). Since then, there have been several cases of "digital collusion" that have been taken up by antitrust authorities worldwide and in some cases also sanctioned (see, for example, the article Dohrn/Reinhold, "Collusion by Code": Challenges for antitrust compliance, in Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb, Issue 10, p. 540 et seq.). This last article in our "Digital Compliance" series is dedicated to digital antitrust compliance in the form of so-called "antitrust screening tools". The article describes how they work and provides an outlook on (future) areas of application in cartel prevention and the repressive processing and prosecution of cartels.

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In the last three articles of our "Digital Compliance" series, we explained the benefits and risks of using software-based compliance tools under aspects of data protection law and sanctions compliance. In this article, we are now taking a look at the benefits and risks of such software-based compliance tools from a labour law perspective.

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In a world filled with new challenges, Germany faces the task of remaining competitive in an in-ternational comparison. An attractive capital market is a key factor for facilitating investment in innovative developments and technological progress. Access to the capital market is therefore being simplified, particularly for start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, companies will benefit from new tax regulations governing employee participation schemes in the competition for international skilled labour. Last Friday, the Bundestag passed the draft bill on the "Financing of Investments to Secure the Future" (so-called Financing for the Future Act [Zukunftsfinanzierungsgesetz, ZuFinG]). Alexandra Groth, Hanjo Prondzinski and Robert Fischer-Sonnberg explain the innovations and opportunities arising from the Financing for the Future Act:

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Oppenhoff has taken first place in the iurratio Awards 2024 as "Best Employer for Career Entry in the Area of Health & Work-Life Balance".

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Oppenhoff has advised RE.LION.BAT. Circular GmbH, a joint venture between the DEPPE Group and Fahrzeug-Werke LUEG AG, on the construction of the largest European battery recycling plant in Meppen, Emsland.

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Oppenhoff has advised portfolio companies of the Munich-based private equity firm Family Trust Investor on two buy & build acquisitions.

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