Services

Legal

Our tax, audit and advisory services deal with many complex issues, frequently involving legal aspects that must also be taken into account. In addition, every proposed arrangement requires a clear and legally secure application. By involving experienced lawyers from our Legal service area at an early stage, we can provide a full range of advisory services from a single source. But even above and beyond projects requiring interdisciplinary input, we can advise and assist our clients in many areas of law.

Advisory approach

When developing fiscally secure and economically advantageous concepts for our clients, our legal specialists are usually part of the team right from the start. In this way we create legal certainty and ensure that the concepts are put into practice without any loss of information. Our lawyers have cross-functional expertise and many years of experience across the realms of business law. We draw up partnership agreements, articles of association, reorganisation documents, contracts of sale, lease agreements and contracts for work and services or wills and marriage contracts. In negotiations and disputes with authorities and courts, it also enables us to represent our clients’ interests in a competent and farsighted manner. It is important to us to not only accurately analyse the legal situation but also give our clients practical advice, taking into account many other aspects. That is what we understand by good advisory services.

Quality assurance

Our clients are assisted by experienced lawyers who, thanks to their interdisciplinary expertise, have a firm grasp not only of tax and business aspects but also of the legal implications, thus making a significant contribution to our quality assurance. Ongoing further training is a given. But we also provide training internally and externally as speakers at conferences or authors of respected professional publications. In this way we keep pace with the times.

Range of services

Our services cover the full spectrum of corporate law.

  • We draft partnership agreements and articles of association for all legal forms tailored to your particular circumstances and, because the possibilities are many and varied, the respective advantages and disadvantages must always be looked at with the individual situation in mind.
  • We are widely experienced in attending to the needs of holding and group structures, tax being only one of many issues needing careful consideration. We also consider issues such as liability, financing, requirements for an effective management structure as well as risks under German labour law or employee co-determination law.
  • We devise solutions to meet special circumstances. You want to involve your successors or employees, you take on a private equity partner, you enter into a joint venture, you need a special purpose vehicle for a specific project? We have the right solutions for these situations that enable you to realise your plans in a legally secure and fair manner.
  • We monitor legislation closely derive necessary prearrangements from a future legal situation early on in order for your and your company to be fully prepared in good time (e. g.  on the law about modernization of partnership law “MoPeG”)

Companies have to hold their own in a complex environment. The very broad legal framework not only affords protection, but also harbours many risks, not least because there is the expectation that companies will observe all the regulations and do everything right.

  • We are happy to support you here. The starting point is often an analysis of the particular legal risks inherent in a given case.
  • We start by examining the procedures and processes in place in the company, frequently identifying sources of error. We can then make specific suggestions for improvement, including better documentation. This is the only way that the managers can protect themselves if something does happen to go wrong.
  • If you are held to account as a manager, we can help you with your legal defence, in and out of court.

Single-entity companies and groups of companies must continually adapt to new framework conditions and a changing market environment, be it a change of legal form, a merger or separation of units in a company, or the creation of a holding structure.

  • We can advise you on all matters relating to the restructuring of legal entities. Especially in this area, our interdisciplinary approach offers unrivalled advantages.
  • We develop the concept in compliance with civil and tax law and then implement it in such a way that the contracts and resolutions then only need to be notarised.
  • Another important component of our transaction consulting is assistance with corporate acquisitions. We represent both buyers and sellers. In many cases, our work begins with preliminary agreements such as a professional letter of intent.
  • As a next step, we conduct a due diligence – often along with our colleagues from the Tax and Advisory service areas – or assist the seller with a vendor due diligence or with the compilation of the data room. At the same time, we start drafting the contract and provide support in the negotiations.
  • Finally, we can help on all sides with the joining and withdrawal of shareholders, both in friendly and contentious situations.

We have been handling all matters relating to asset succession for decades. Ideally, the transfer of company assets to the next generation is a process that is initiated in good time, is well thought through and takes many different considerations into account. To achieve optimal outcomes from a tax perspective, upstream arrangements are often necessary before the actual act of anticipated succession can take place.

  • We cover the entire bandwidth, from classic gift contracts (if appropriate with a usufruct) to family-owned companies in order to ensure a smooth transition to the next generation, right up to the inclusion of trusts in the succession concept.
  • Anyone owning assets, especially business assets, should always make provision for sudden death by means of testamentary dispositions.
  • There is no universal answer to the question of which provisions are necessary or at least sensible in a will or a contract of inheritance. The individual circumstances must always be taken into account. Wills need to be adapted at regular intervals, particularly when changes occur in personal circumstances. We will be happy to assist you with this.

  • When the time comes, we can assist in various ways. Our advisors are frequently appointed as executors. In this capacity we then take charge of administering the estate and, as permanent executors, can also ensure over a longer period of time that the testator’s will is carried out, for example, if heirs are still minors or are simply still very young.
  • We advise heirs or other executors on the fulfilment of all of the testator’s instructions or in connection with a partition of the estate.
  • We naturally also coordinate matters as required with courts and authorities.

In the past, freelancers, especially physicians, were often organised as sole proprietorships. Today, however, there are other requirements regarding collaborative arrangements.

  • At the interface of corporate law and medical law, we advise multidisciplinary and multisite medical practice partnerships and joint practices as well as medical care centres.

We advise companies in all areas of individual and collective labour law. In addition to handling the entire process of establishing and terminating employment relationships, this includes all labour law issues that crop up in day-to-day operations.

  • If difficulties arise with the works council or if operational procedures need to be regulated by means of a works agreement, we can support our clients both in the discussions and in the preparation of the relevant documents.
  • We are able to guarantee that social security law and tax law are taken into account through interdisciplinary cooperation across the specialist areas.
  • We also advise individuals in management positions, in particular board members and managing directors, on the arrangement of their legal relationships with the company.

We support our clients in negotiations and in the drafting of important business law contracts.

  • Examples include comprehensive supply contracts, large construction and IT projects, licence agreements or general terms and conditions.
  • This includes the drafting of complex and usually highly customised contracts for corporate and project financing.

Representing clients before the courts is one of the most important aspects of our work as lawyers.

  • However, our activities are not confined to pure litigation; as our clients’ representatives we also assist and guide them through the various stages of disputes.
  • In addition to enforcing valid claims, the overriding objective is often to achieve a fair settlement of disputes.
  • In pursuit of this goal, we conduct out-of-court negotiations and attend mediation hearings, and in arbitration proceedings can act both as party representatives and as arbitrators.
  • If our clients are adversely affected by the insolvency of a business partner, we help to secure and enforce creditors’ claims.

In this business area, we provide support for organisations whose activities are not driven by profit-making motives.

  • This includes enterprises in the welfare sector as well as professional and other interest groups. We understand the special features of this sector.
  • In addition to their entrepreneurial commitments, many of our clients also wish to support and promote the wider community. We show you safe ways of pursuing non-profit and charitable goals, the conditions under which this can be done as well as suitable legal forms, for example as a trust, association or corporation.

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