Compliance

The term compliance, in its general understanding, means “adherence to law”/”regulatory conformity” and refers to measures and guidelines that serve to ensure the lawful and ethical conduct of a company. Compliance requirements represent an indispensable component of responsible corporate governance, not only for large corporations.

Due to the increasing density of regulations at national, European and international level, the need for compliance is growing—clearly defining which requirements must be observed. Knowledge of the existing complex rules is of immense importance in order to avoid non-compliant conduct and thus potential liability risks.

Compliance ensures that companies act in accordance with the law and comply with both statutory and internal corporate rules and prohibitions. This is particularly important because companies have a legal obligation to integrate a compliance system, monitor it, verify its effectiveness, and adapt it to changing legal requirements.

Furthermore, compliance serves to provide companies with possible measures and methods by which adherence to legal and internal operational requirements can be ensured.

We advise you on compliance aspects from all areas of law and support you in complying with existing laws and regulations to avoid potential risks. We are available to assist you not only at our corporate location in Göttingen, but also throughout the region, particularly in Kassel, Braunschweig and Hanover, as well as nationwide.

With the goal of proactively avoiding and minimizing regulatory measures and potential liability risks, as well as reputational damage, we develop customized compliance guidelines and systems tailored to your needs. We offer you practical, implementable, and effective solutions.

In addition, we help you realistically assess existing risks so that you do not leave economic opportunities unused due to unjustified caution. Our goal is to protect you sufficiently from official measures without hindering your entrepreneurial activity through an unnecessary flood of rules and requirements.

The corporate responsibility of managing directors and board members always entails a certain degree of risk. This is primarily because responsibility must be assumed not only for one’s own misconduct, but also for operational legal violations if adequate control mechanisms do not exist.

A key focus of our work is to identify criminal risks and develop internal corporate measures to prevent criminal offenses—so-called “Criminal Compliance”—for you.

Our work in this area serves the purpose of proactively preventing the commission of offenses harmful to the company and thus avoiding criminal law-related confrontation through crime prevention. We advise you on all aspects of business law and tax criminal law.

Notwithstanding the fact that companies themselves cannot yet be subject to criminal charges, they may face substantial fines, particularly when legal violations by employees occur. The implementation of criminal compliance measures can help avoid such fines.

Should you already be confronted with the suspicion of having committed a legal violation, we support you with experience and commitment. We accompany you, your employees, and your company through all procedural stages, including investigation and criminal proceedings.

Measures to secure your economic success

Every company is obligated to comply with the requirements and obligations of statutory tax regulations.

Precisely because German tax law—which is not without reason considered one of the most complicated systems in the world—is constantly changing, this obligation proves complex and difficult in many cases. Companies should proactively protect themselves through tax compliance. A Tax Compliance Management System (Tax CMS) can ensure that all relevant tax laws and every tax obligation, such as the timely and correct submission of tax advance notifications and declarations, are met. If, for example, an error has occurred in the tax returns, a Tax CMS can serve to refute the allegation of intent or negligence in the erroneous declaration and enable a correction of the tax return as an amendment rather than a voluntary disclosure. This potentially avoids, among other things, criminal investigation for tax evasion (§ 370 AO) or administrative offense proceedings for negligent tax reduction (§ 378 AO). An established and documented Tax CMS therefore serves not only to build trust internally within the company, but also creates trust with the responsible tax authority. We support you in analyzing existing circumstances, as well as establishing and optimizing an effective Tax CMS. In doing so, we address the individual circumstances of your company. The goal of our work is to identify, analyze, and ideally completely avoid financial, criminal, and reputational risks at an early stage.

Through the implementation of a functioning Tax CMS, risks are minimized, the effectiveness and operational capability of the company are secured, and thus economic success is also safeguarded from a tax law perspective.