News

EU-Commission opens first DMA investigations against Apple, Meta and Alphabet

Shortly after the Digital Markets Act ("DMA") was activated at the beginning of March, the EU-Commission is already flexing its muscles: On 25 March 2024, the EU-Commission opened a total of five investigations against the three companies Alphabet, Apple and Meta classified as "gatekeepers" on suspicion of inadequate implementation of the obligations imposed on them by the DMA. The gatekeepers now face substantial fines. In addition, affected companies and users could actively claim their DMA rights and, if necessary, enforce them in court.

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Compliance19.03.2024 Newsletter

CSDDD update: the way is paved for a level playing field in supply chain compliance

The European legal framework for due diligence obligations in supply chains is now likely to come in a watered-down version. In the Council of the European Union, the majority of EU member states have agreed on a directive on supply chain compliance (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive/ CSDDD or CS3D for short) after initially failing to reach agreement at the European level.

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Compliance / Public Law / Regulatory07.03.2024 Newsletter

Regulation to prohibit products made with forced labour: Further progress in the legislative process

The EU is moving forward with ESG regulation. In the future, the ban on products manufactured using forced labor will prevent products manufactured using forced labor from being placed and made available on the EU market or exported from the EU.

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Corporate Law / Mergers & Acquisitions06.03.2024Frankfurt am Main News

New partner for Frankfurt: Oppenhoff strengthens corporate team with Dr. Barnim von den Steinen

Oppenhoff gains Dr. Barnim von den Steinen as a new corporate partner for the Frankfurt office. He transferred from Rotthege on 1 March 2024.

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Tightening of requirements of the German Lobby Register Act

The German Lobby Register Act (Lobbyregistergesetz, LobbyRG) has been in force since 1 January 2022. According to this, lobbyists who contact members of the Bundestag or the Federal Government in order to directly or indirectly influence their decision-making processes are obliged to register in the publicly accessible lobby register. Further information can be found in our article "Lobby register: who does it affect and what needs to be done?" Statutory amendments to the LobbyRG enter into force on 1 March 2024. Their aim is to further tighten the scope of application and disclosure requirements and thus increase the informative value of the lobby register.

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Compliance26.02.2024 Newsletter

EU adopts 13th sanctions package against Russia

The EU has adopted the thirteenth package of sanctions against Russia. In time for the second anniversary of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the representatives of the 27 EU member states have imposed additional sanctions against Russia. Around 200 individuals, companies and organisations are affected.

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Reform of family law: planned introduction of a community of responsibility

At the beginning of the legislative period, the Federal Government announced a comprehensive reform of family law and set itself the goal of adapting family law to social reality and extensively modernising it.

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Oppenhoff advised on add-on unitranche facility for MRH Trowe

Oppenhoff advised the industrial insurance broker MRH Trowe on an upsizing of the existing unitranche financing to provide funding for the group’s next step of its growth story.

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Oppenhoff advises BMV Group on the accession of further building materials dealers

Oppenhoff has advised the BMV Group on the accession of three further medium-sized building materials dealers. Last year, the law firm had already advised the BMV Group on its reorganisation and the takeover of the von den Hoff Group.

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Oppenhoff advises KNDS on cornerstone investment in connection with RENK Group listing

Oppenhoff has advised KNDS N.V. on a cornerstone investment in connection with the listing of RENK Group AG at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. KNDS has acquired a 6.7 percent stake in RENK.

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Reform of family law: planned changes to parentage and filiation law

Extensive and diverse reforms to family law were already announced in the coalition agree-ment between the SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and the FDP. These reform plans are now being specified in greater detail with regard to parentage and filiation law - Federal Minister of Justice Dr. Marco Buschmann presented two key issues papers in mid-January that contain concrete proposals for modernising family law.

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Oppenhoff advises AustriaEnergy on extension of Joint Venture for large-scale Power-to-X “HNH Energy” for green hydrogen and green ammonia in Chile

Oppenhoff has advised the AustriaEnergy Group on the expansion and structuring in two phases of the Joint Venture for HNH Energy in Chile, one of the world's largest Power-to-X projects for the production of green hydrogen and green ammonia with a potential aggregate capacity of 5GW of wind.

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Oppenhoff advises EIC Fund on EUR 53 million Series B financing round of Infinite Roots

Oppenhoff has once again comprehensively advised the EIC Fund on its German investments. This time, the EIC Fund invested together with Dr. Hans Riegel Holding GmbH (one of the two shareholder holding companies of the Haribo Group) and REWE in the Hamburg biotech start-up Infinite Roots. The investment was in the form of an equity investment under the "Horizon Europe Programme" as part of a second closing of the Series B financing round.

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23.01.2024Cologne News

Oppenhoff partner Dr. Nefail Berjasevic appointed Honorary Professor

Oppenhoff partner Dr. Nefail Berjasevic has been awarded the academic title of Honorary Professor by the University of Siegen. The prestigious award recognises his professional practice and, in particular, his outstanding achievements in teaching and research.

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Compliance / Public Law / Regulatory22.01.2024 Newsletter

ESG Compliance 2024: What companies need to know now

CBAM, LkSG, CSRD, Deforestation Regulation: The year 2024 will continue to be characterized by ESG regulation. Companies will need to keep track of the many new obligations and incorporate them into their compliance systems in a timely manner. Below is an overview of the key issues.

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Lending decisions: 7th MaRisk Amendment and ESG risks

The 7th MaRisk Amendment specifies the handling of ESG risks in lending decisions. Borrowers must now provide information on potential ESG risks during the approval process.

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Ways out of unlawful data processing by AI

The New York Times recently filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI. The reason: possible copyright infringements through the use of millions of articles from the New York Times to train ChatGPT. This lawsuit gives cause to consider whether the unlawful processing of data in the design, training or operation phases of artificial intelligence (AI) systems requires that the models be retrained or whether alternative solutions are available

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European State Aid Law11.01.2024 Newsletter

Important changes in state aid law: an overview of the new de minimis regulations

State subsidies from EU member states are subject to EU state aid law (Art. 107 et seq. TFEU). According to this, state aid is generally prohibited as it can distort competition. It can only be justified in exceptional cases. State aid is therefore subject to a so-called "notification and standstill requirement". This means that state aid must be notified to the EU Commission by the member states and may only be implemented once the EU Commission has authorised it.

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Oppenhoff advises MURA Deutschland on the sale of a light industrial property in Cologne

Oppenhoff has advised MURA Deutschland GmbH on the sale of a light industrial property in Cologne comprising more than 14,000 square metres of hall and office space to Patron Capital and INBRIGHT. The complex of manufacturing, production, service and storage areas was built on a plot of land measuring over 13,000 square metres.

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Compliance20.12.2023 Newsletter

EU adopts 12th package of sanctions against Russia

The EU has adopted the twelfth package of sanctions against Russia. After several weeks of negotiations, the EU - in close cooperation with its G7 partners - has in particular imposed additional import and export bans against Russia, sanctioned more than 140 additional individuals and taken further measures to combat the circumvention of sanctions. Read Stephan Mueller and Mareike Heesing's article to find out what companies now need to bear in mind.

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Strict framework for supply chain compliance in Europe - the "EU Supply Chain Act" is coming!

The European legal framework for due diligence obligations in supply chains has been finalised. The EU member states and the EU Parliament's chief negotiators have agreed on key points for a directive on supply chain compliance (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive/ CSDDD or CS3D for short), which was still subject to approval by the Parliament and the mem-ber states.

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IT Law and Data Protection14.12.2023 Newsletter

Focus IT&C – 4rd Quarter 2023

Find out more about our IT law & data protection practice group - now regularly summarised for you at a glance! Enjoy reading!

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13.12.2023 Newsletter

Focus on Labor Law – 4th Quarter 2023

In our last issue of this year's Focus on Labour Law you will find the usual overview of the most important labour court decisions of recent months, the minimum wage that will apply from 1 January 2024 and the social security calculation parameters that will apply next year.

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12.12.2023 News

Oppenhoff appoints new partners as of 1 January 2024

Oppenhoff elected Holger Hofmann (Public Commercial Law, Public Procurement Law) as an equity partner with effect from 1 January 2024. Alexandra Groth (Labour Law) was appointed partner and Dr Johannes Kaesbach (Labour Law) and Tobias Kollakowski (IT Law & Data Protection; Legal Tech) were promoted to junior partners.

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Antitrust Law and Merger Control12.12.2023 Newsletter

Digital Compliance: Antitrust Screening

Cartels have long since ceased to be forged exclusively at highway service stations. Back in 2017, we highlighted the effects of digitalization on antitrust compliance in an article ("Antitrust law 4.0"). Since then, there have been several cases of "digital collusion" that have been taken up by antitrust authorities worldwide and in some cases also sanctioned (see, for example, the article Dohrn/Reinhold, "Collusion by Code": Challenges for antitrust compliance, in Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb, Issue 10, p. 540 et seq.). This last article in our "Digital Compliance" series is dedicated to digital antitrust compliance in the form of so-called "antitrust screening tools". The article describes how they work and provides an outlook on (future) areas of application in cartel prevention and the repressive processing and prosecution of cartels.

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Julia Witte

Julia Witte

Communications Manager

Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer 23
50668 Cologne
T +49 221 2091 342

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