On 10 July 2025 the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) published a new draft bill to transpose the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) into German law. The previous federal government had already presented a draft bill to implement the CSRD. However, the legislative process was never completed. The CSRD aims to ensure that certain companies report on the social and environmental impacts and risks of their business activities. The aim of the draft bill is to implement the directive with as little bureaucracy as possible.
With the entry into force of the Act for the Modernisation of Partnership Law (“MoPeG”) on 1 January 2024, the legislators fundamentally reformed the rules regarding defective resolutions for commercial partnerships (OHG, KG, GmbH & Co. KG). Sections 109–115 of the German Commercial Code (HGB) contain for the first time detailed provisions on resolution procedures and the judicial enforcement of resolution defects.
On December 19, 2024, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) held, that it breaches the free movement of capital under Art. 63 TFEU, if WHT is refunded only to residents being in a loss-making position whereas a refund is not granted to non-residents being in a foreign loss-making position (case C-601/23, Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Ltd. vs. Diputación Foral de Bizkaia).
This judgment confirms, on the hand, the validity of the decision in the Sofina case (C-575/17, November 22, 2018) for which it was unclear whether it established general principles of CJEU jurisprudence for the future. On the other hand, the current judgment extends the Sofina principles to cases where WHT is also withheld on dividends paid to domestic recipients.
A constitutional complaint challenging the manner of video coverage of an oral hearing before the Munich Tax Court was not admitted by the Federal Constitutional Court. Specifically, the claim was about the use of only one camera without zoom function in a video hearing.
The Federal Government has introduced the Second Budget Financing Act. Among other things, the law provides for a higher air traffic tax from 2024, sanctions in relation to the so-called citizen's income (“Bürgergeld”) and the gradual phasing out of subsidies for agricultural diesel.
Following their committee meeting on 04 September 2022, the coalition parties have presented a further package of measures (known as the Third Relief Package) for relief in the current crisis.
