Compliance in der Aktiengesellschaft

Given the increasing significance of compliance, the paper focuses on the interaction of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board in the context of investigating potential compliance violations as well as the potential scope of information gained independently from the Board of Management. The main focus of the analysis is the question of which obligations of the Management Board and the Supervisory Board result from the Management Board’s management duty and the Supervisory Board’s supervisory task in view of possible compliance violations. While the allocation of responsibilities appears to be clearly defined in theory, conflicts of competence are the rule in the process of investigating possible compliance violations and therefore form a further focus of the paper – as do the possibilities for the Supervisory Board to obtain information independently of the Board of Management.