The Antitrust Law Update will take place on 26 September 2023 from 10:00am to 4:00pm CET. Please note this event will be held in German only.
The 8th Frankfurt Tax Congress will take place on 17 October 2023 from 9:25am to 6:00pm CET. Please note this event will be held in German only.
By judgment dated 23 March 2023 (2 K 172/19), the Tax Court (Finanzgericht) Hamburg determined to what extent a tax office may request the submission of emails within the scope of a tax audit.
The Tax Court ruled that the request for submission of an overall journal in the form of a list of all emails, including emails that are not relevant for tax purposes (and that are not internal correspondence), was unlawful. According to the view of the Tax Court, the tax offices is not limited to conducting interviews since emails have an increased evidentiary evidence.
Please note that this event will be held on 12 July 2023 at 4:00pm CET in German only.
The recently published ruling 14 K 588/20 of the Munich Tax Court dated October 27, 2022, addresses the case of a lump-sum TP adjustment at the end of the fiscal year that resulted in a lump sum increase in resale prices and thus in an additional intercompany charge to the German distributor.
On 5 May 2023, the Federal Office of Administration (FOA), the competent authority for the German Transparency Register, has once again published new interpretation notes to the German Anti-Money Laundering Law.
In these, the FOA now also comments for the first time on the extended transparency register obligations of foreign companies and legal entities such as foundations and trusts (“foreign associations”) with direct or indirect real estate ownership in Germany introduced by the Sanctions Enforcement Act II.
The German Whistleblower Protection Act was (finally) passed on 12 May 2023, after several attempts, following final amendments proposed by the Mediation Committee on 9 May 2023, which have now been accepted by the Federal Parliament (Bundestag) and the Federal Council (Bundesrat). The long overdue law serves to implement the European Whistleblower Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/1937), which actually provided for an implementation deadline of December 2021. The law will now come into force in mid-June 2023.
On 18 April 2023, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs published the much anticipated draft bill on the exact requirements of how to meet the duty to record working time. The Draft Bill was published against the backdrop of a ruling by the Federal Labor Court in September 2022. Germany’s highest labor court ruled that employers — regardless of the size of the company and the existence of a works council — must record the working hours of their employees (Ref.: 1 ABR 22/21).
On 5 April 2023, the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection published the government draft of the 11th amendment to the Act against Restraints of Competition. Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck described the amendment as “one of the biggest reforms of competition law in recent decades”, which – in the words of Federal Minister of Justice Dr. Marco Buschmann – is intended to give the German Federal Cartel Office more “teeth”
Join us for a four-part webinar series as our US moderators welcome colleagues from around the globe to share the latest labor and employment law updates and trends. US-based multinational employers with business operations in Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the Americas regions will hear directly from local practitioners on the major developments they need to know, and come away with practical tips and takeaways to implement.