On 29 March 2019 the United Kingdom’s membership in the EU will expire. As a result, companies under the legal form of a Ltd. with administrative headquarters in Germany will lose their freedom of establishment and will no longer be recognized as legal entity in Germany. This could, however, be subject to a transition period according to the new “EU withdrawal agreement”. The German Federal Government as well as the German Federal Ministry of Finance respond to this by proposing two new laws which are supposed to ease the transition into a new legal form for affected Ltd.s´.

As soon as two parties are domiciled in different countries, the contract should contain terms on applicable law and jurisdiction. Using the example of company acquisitions, the following article examines the risks arising from the absence of such contract terms and outlines what needs to be taken into account when drawing up such agreements.

On 8 June 2016, the European Union adopted the Directive on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (the “Privacy Directive”). Even though the implementation of German legislation has not yet been completed, there are already indications of what companies will have to take into account in the future to protect business information.