Round Table “Compliance and Internal Investigations”
At the invitation of the Bavarian Minister for Justice, Mr. Georg Eisenreich, our firm’s partner, Attorney Professor Dr. Petra Wittig, participated as an expert in the roundtable discussion on “Compliance and Internal Investigations” at the State Ministry and contributed to the jointly developed reform proposals regarding the law on corporate fines.
The expert panel, composed of representatives from the legal profession, academia, business, and the judiciary, addressed the fact that current corporate sanctions law no longer fully meets the demands of practice. In particular, the law has not yet taken sufficient account of companies’ compliance efforts and internal investigations. In the context of corporate fines under Section 30 of the German Administrative Offenses Act (OWiG), the expert panel believes that stronger incentives for effective compliance should be established and that companies’ willingness to cooperate in sanction proceedings should be fairly taken into account.
You can find the State Ministry’s press release with further information here: