German Corporate Sanctions Law failed (for now)

After this development had been apparent for several months, the legislative project for a German corporate sanctions law has now failed; at least for this legislative period.

Although the governing parties had already agreed on a “new sanctions law for companies” in the coalition agreement in 2018, and an “unofficial” draft bill was available in August 2019, which finally made it to a governmental draft in 2020 under the title “Law to Strengthen Integrity in Business”, the project has now (for the time being) failed after intensive discussions in recent months. One of the main reasons for the failure is said to be the disagreement on how to deal with internal investigations. In particular, the planned separation between criminal defense on the one hand and legal advice and support for internal investigations on the other, and the associated limited prohibition on the confiscation of any investigation results, proved to be obviously incapable of consensus.

It remains to be seen whether and to what extent a new attempt will be made to introduce corporate criminal law after the German parliamentary elections in the fall. At least some election programs suggest that corporate criminal law will be on the agenda again in the next legislative period.

Bron: POHLMANN & COMPANY