News-Archive

Oppenhoff has advised Überörtliche Berufsausübungsgemeinschaft Dres. Schumann, Knevels, Hoffmann und Kollegen, now Nephrologicum Westfalen, on the sale of Medizinisches Versorgungszentrum Nephrologicum Westfalen.

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The deadline for transposing the EU Whistleblower Directive 2019/1937 into national law expired in vain on 17 December 2021. Germany is therefore facing infringement proceedings. Now, draft bill of the German Federal Ministry of Justice [Bundesministerium der Justiz, BMJ] on a new Whistleblower Protection Act [Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz, HinSchG] dated 13 April 2022 aims to set the long overdue implementation of the law in motion.

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The EU has once again significantly tightened its sanctions against Russia. On 8 April 2022, it adopted another, fifth sanctions package. With these sanctions, the EU is responding to continued Russian aggression against Ukraine's territorial integrity and ongoing attacks on Ukrainian civilians and cities.

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Oppenhoff has advised the Swedish listed life science company AddLife AB on the acquisition of the BioCat Group.

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As a result of the war in Ukraine, prices for raw materials and energy have risen immensely and are currently causing problems not just for internationally oriented German industry. More and more companies are therefore confronted with the question of whether they can respond to the production disruptions by introducing short-time work or by business closures or relocations in the short term.

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As the new metaverse shows: the boundaries between digital and virtual worlds are becoming increasingly blurred. Manufacturers of virtual reality technology have long since recognised that the need for complex, virtual worlds is immense and needs to be differentiated further. This includes the fact that, especially in online role-playing games, there is a market for virtual goods that only exist within the respective game. The German Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof, BFH) has now addressed the question of whether the trading of virtual goods triggers sales tax. The BFH deems there to be no sales tax liability in the virtual world, but only once virtual money is exchanged for real money.

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Paper is increasingly being dispensed with for reasons of sustainability. Home office obligations and travel bans in connection with the Corona pandemic are making handwritten signatures impractical. Electronic signatures are a simple alternative to traditional signatures and are increasingly important in business and legal transactions.

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With this first Labour Law Focus of 2022, we would also like to inform you about other relevant developments in labour law jurisprudence and legislation. 

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Just as in "conventional" sports, the marketing and commercial exploitation of events also plays a central role in generating revenues in e-sports. In addition to ticket sales, sponsorship and advertising, media exploitation of the event in particular is a source of revenue with great growth potential. Here, however, the interests of the various players are frequently at odds - especially those of the organiser and the game manufacturer. Below, we explain the opportunities and risks for organisers concerning the commercial exploitation of e-sports events.

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The loss of players due to cheaters is a serious problem for game makers and publishers. The common anti-cheat measures that have been used to date, such as account bans, are not particularly effective. Publishers and manufacturers have therefore increasingly started using so-called hardware ID bans, where the unique identifiers of the components installed in the end device, such as the graphics card or CPU, are read out. Is this legally permissible?

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