GERMANY Law and Practice Contributed by: Bettina Mertgen, Felix Siebler, Michael Herold and Sebastian Faust, GvW Graf von Westphalen
is a narrow (counter-)exception under Section 5 (2) (1) of the Whistleblower Protection Act for criminal offences reported internally, provided that the clas - sified information concerned is only at the lowest level of VS classification. 7.9 Corporate Criminal Liability For legal entities, Germany does not currently recog - nise corporate criminal liability as a separate concept. Instead, companies can be subject to substantial administrative fines under Sections 30 and 130 of the Administrative Offences Act (OWiG) where offences are committed by managers or where management fails to implement adequate supervisory measures.
The standard for corporate liability is therefore based on attribution: a company may be fined if a managerial person commits a criminal or regulatory offence that breaches the company’s duties or benefits the com - pany, or if the offence was facilitated by inadequate compliance and supervision systems. In the defence sector, this framework can apply to export control violations, sanctions breaches, brib - ery in procurement and related misconduct. Effective compliance programmes and remediation measures may be taken into account when determining the level of any corporate sanction.
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