April 29, 2019 /
Under current law, criminal offenses committed by legal entities and associations of persons can only be punished with a fine in accordance with the German Administrative Offences Act (OWiG), whereby the maximum limit is ten million euros and is independent of the size of the association.
Sanctions are based on company size
The Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection currently has a draft bill on this subject with the aim of placing the sanctioning of associations on an independent legal basis. The draft applies to economically active companies and is intended to provide the prosecuting authorities and courts with a new set of sanctioning instruments. The association procedure will be reorganized.
The fines, now referred to as monetary sanctions, will in future be based on the size of the company in question and can amount to up to ten percent of annual turnover.