Compliance Legal Consulting

A structured risk analysis serves as the basis for effective compliance management. Our legal advice helps you to make company-specific risks transparent and to face them in a legally certain manner with a clear, practical catalogue of measures. Our services include in particular:

• Identification and assessment of general compliance risks: Together with you, we identify potential legal risks that may exist irrespective of industry or company size. Particularly in the areas of antitrust law, corruption prevention, information security and data protection.
• Risk assessment in relation to individual company divisions, employees and processes (e.g. red-light, green-light analysis): With the help of proven methods such as red-light, green-light analysis, we create a transparent picture of the situation in a structured manner. This allows particularly sensitive areas to be quickly identified and secured.
• Employee surveys: Through anonymous surveys, we establish the actual awareness of compliance issues within the workforce. This will help your business uncover potential gaps between policy and day-to-day practice.

An effective compliance programme is based on clear structures, comprehensible rules and consistent anchoring in day-to-day business. Our legal advice will help you to build up these principles professionally and implement them effectively in the long term.

• Implementation of a customised compliance programme: No company is like another – thus, a customised compliance system will be needed that is tailored to the industry, company size and risk situation.
• Creation of clear compliance standards for employees and management: Legally compliant standards include a Code of Conduct, ethics rules and guidance on how to deal with conflict situations and prevent violations in the sales department. Such documents form the backbone of any compliance culture.  We support you in creating comprehensible, legally compliant standards.
• Development of a compliance structure for corporate groups - international and multilingual: Precisely for complex corporate structures with several subsidiaries or overseas branches, a uniform but flexible compliance architecture is required. We develop legally compliant frameworks with you that take cultural differences and language requirements into account, as well as country-specific legal situations.
• Training employees to adhere to the standards: Effective compliance requires comprehensible and practical rules. Through targeted training, companies ensure that employees know and understand the requirements, apply them in their day-to-day work and thus avoid unintentional violations.
• Individual training for a crisis situation: Whether an indication of a violation, media attention or investigative measures are involved, with the right preparation, managers and key personnel gain the necessary confidence in dealing with critical situations and know how to act in a legally compliant and de-escalating manner.
• Establishment of a compliance hotline: A confidential point of contact for internal reports is not only a sign of integrity that is lived out, but is now also legally required by the Whistleblower Protection Act.
• Audit of corporate governance codes: Existing codes of practice (Codes of Conduct for Responsible and Transparent Corporate Management) should be regularly audited for being current, for legal robustness and company-specific relevance. We will revise or develop your basic documents for you on request.

If there is a suspicion or if the authorities have already become active, swift action is required. In such cases, our legal advice offers swift, competent and strategically well thought-out support, both nationally and internationally.

• Immediate compliance support throughout Europe: We provide expert teams who are available at short notice and who work closely with your company, irrespective of the European location.
• Crisis management, especially when communicating with the media and authorities: We will advise you on dealing with investigative authorities, supervisory bodies and the press. This involves communication that is simultaneously legally sound and strategically intelligent, preventing possible escalations.
• Coordination and support in all phases of the procedure: We take on legal support and coordination in all phases, from internal investigations and official hearings through to administrative proceedings.
• Strategy development and immediate advice during house searches: In the event of a search, we will assist you immediately. We ensure that all those involved behave in a legally compliant manner, support the measure on site and develop a defence strategy at the same time.
• Representation before national authorities and the European Commission: We represent your company with experience, technical precision and strategic foresight, both before national supervisory and competition authorities and before the European Commission.
• Support for unannounced audits: In the event of unannounced searches by competition or supervisory authorities, we provide immediate legal support. From internal alerting and on-site legal presence through to incident follow-up, we ensure that your company acts in a legally compliant and prepared manner.
• Advice on managing consequences and sanctions: In the event of breaches of duty, we help to limit damage and professionally handle the consequences, such as fines, official requirements or reputational damage. We develop measures for recovery and structural adjustment.
• Drafting leniency applications in all relevant jurisdictions: In close cooperation with our international partners, we assess whether and when it makes sense to submit a leniency application. We support you from the legal assessment through to the formal submission of the application.