News-Archive

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

Read more

Oppenhoff has advised and represented its long-standing client KMW in a dispute concerning statements made by Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG. The high-profile proceedings before the Munich I Regional Court concerned how certain statements made by Papperger in an interview with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 15 March 2023 were to be understood.

Read more

Following the publication of an initial draft (German version only) by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) about an amendment to the German Act against Restraints of Competition (11th ARC amendment) in September of last year, Germany’s Federal Government on April 5, 2023 passed a corresponding government draft bill (German version only) ("ARC-D") to tighten up the German Competition Act. The supporters of the amendment do not skip using combative metaphors: one speaks of "antitrust law with claws and teeth" or a "competition authority having a punch". We give you an overview of how the lawmaker will sharpen the "teeth" of the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO).

Read more

Last year, the German Federal Fiscal Court [Bundesfinanzhof, BFH] ruled that when companies are transferred to the next generation, an application for so-called full exemption can be made for each individual transferred company (= economic unit). It thus rejected the previous view held by the tax authorities (ruling dated 26 July 2022 - II R 25/20).

Read more

Oppenhoff has advised the BMV Group on its realignment and acquisition of the von den Hoff Group. The von den Hoff companies will be taken over by a newly founded subsidiary, BMV Holding GmbH & Co. KG.

Read more

Oppenhoff has once again comprehensively advised the EIC Fund on its investments in Germany. This time, the EIC Fund invested together with Dieter von Holzbrink Ventures (DvH Ventures) and the Rudolf Fuchs Family Office in a Series A financing round in the tech start-up enote GmbH.

Read more

The Chilean Environmental Impact Assessment Service (“Servicio de Evaluación Ambiental”, SEA) published a 34-page document on 29 March 2023 that sets out new criteria for assessing the environmental impact of green hydrogen production projects.

Read more

Oppenhoff has once again comprehensively advised the EIC Fund on its investments in Germany. This time, the company invested in the tech start-up Nyris GmbH.

Read more

The first two sentences of the draft act amending the energy price brakes published on 5 April 2023 already indicate that this is unlikely to be the last amendment to the Gas and Heat Price Brake Act (Erdgas-Wärme-Preisbremsengesetz, EWPBG) and the Electricity Price Brake Act (Strompreisbremsegesetz, StromPBG). It describes the price brakes as having been "drafted and put into effect in the last quarter of 2022 within a very short time." In light of initial experience gained with the acts’ implementation, "various adjustment requirements, mainly of a technical and editorial nature, have been identified".

Read more

If an employee of a company wishes to obtain information about their processed personal data and the company fails to comply, this can potentially be costly. In this context, the German Federal Labour Court [Bundesarbeitsgericht, BAG] was also against an obligation to represent and prove the concrete occurrence of damage in the event of a failure to provide information. A final decision by the ECJ is pending, however. We explain what companies need to watch out for in this connection.

Read more