News-Archive

Shortly before the end of the last legislative period, the German legislator passed several consumer protection laws. Stationary traders, online traders and operators of online marketplaces must implement several changes. Simon Sawert explains where action is needed.

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Oppenhoff has advised SWARCO AG on the acquisition of the Mobility division of the Dynniq Group, coordinating the work of foreign law firms in nine jurisdictions.

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Oppenhoff has been named Law Firm of the Year for the area of Company/Succession/Trusts at this year's JUVE Awards. This is in recognition of the outstanding development of the practice and the team led by Dr. Axel Wenzel. Oppenhoff was also nominated in no less than three categories this year: Compliance, Media & Technology and Law Firm of the Year.

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Driven by digitisation, consumer protection is currently being modernised: in August 2021, two further new legislative amendments were promulgated. These will come into force on 28 May 2022. Previously, in June 2021, amendments were promulgated, which particularly affected purchase law. Below, we explain the impact the new legislative amendments will have on traders and what preparatory steps they can already take.

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In July of this year, the German Act on the Strengthening of Financial Market Integrity (Gesetz zur Stärkung der Finanzmarktintegrität), or “FISG” for short, came into force. With this, the legislator wishes to strengthen confidence in the German financial market again, especially after the so-called Wirecard scandal. To this end, the FISG envisages a large number of measures, including the legal obligation of listed stock corporations to establish an internal control system (ICS) and risk management system (RMS), the strengthening of the independence and tightening of the liability of annual accounts’ auditors, and the extension of the powers of the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht – BaFin).

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Oppenhoff has advised the German Association of the Automotive Industry e.V. (Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V. - VDA) on the foundation of the Responsible Supply Chain Initiative (RSCI) e.V. Together with manufacturers, suppliers and other associations, the VDA is developing a voluntary, standardised testing mechanism to evaluate the sustainability performance of companies in automotive supply chains.

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Oppenhoff has advised the majority shareholder of the IT consulting company Telexiom AG on the sale of all shares in the company to the US competitor Qualitest Group. The majority shareholder also represented the other shareholders in the sale of their shares.

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For a long time, it was unclear to what extent in-house lawyers are ‘obligated parties’ within the meaning of the German Money Laundering Act (Geldwäschegesetz - GwG). On 1 January 2020, the legislator introduced the new Sec. 10 (8a) GwG, which explicitly names in-house lawyers as obligated parties for the first time, thus clarifying that in-house lawyers are also addressees of the obligations under money laundering law. However, there is still a lack of clarity on many points as far as the exact scope of the obligations of in-house lawyers are concerned. Companies and in-house lawyers affected by this need to review their specific obligations under the GwG as soon as possible if they are to avoid fines for violations of its obligations.

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On Friday, 15.10.2021, new election regulations for the election of the works council and the youth and trainee representation have come into force. This means that the amendments of the Works Council Constitution Act (“Betriebsverfassungsgesetz”, BetrVG) already in force since 18.06.2021 as a result of the “Betriebsrätemodernisierungsgesetz” (Works Council Modernization Act) have been transported by the ordinance amending the election regulations, the election regulations for maritime shipping and the ordinance on the conduct of works council elections at postal companies into the election regulations. We have summarized the changes to the election regulations for you below.

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Oppenhoff has advised the e-sports company Rush Entertainment AG on legal issues relating to the development of its brand presence, including the launch of the modern e-sports entertainment and community platform RUSH.GG. Rush Entertainment was recently founded by the managers of the agency STARK Esports GmbH.

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