Compliance Management System (CMS)

Covert price-fixing, bribery, data falsification…. The damage to companies is enormous. A skillfully integrated Compliance Management System (CMS) can help you further raise your employees’ awareness of the importance of acting in compliance with regulations and the law, thereby avoiding liability claims, lawsuits for damages, or regulatory investigations.

This applies not only to large corporations and violations of criminal law. For years, we have seen an increase in proceedings specifically targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and addressing issues such as tax law, the minimum wage, data protection, whistleblowing, supply chain legislation, or customs law. Even smaller companies can implement an internal, external, or both internal and external CMS.

With an external compliance officer, you gain an efficient and independent advisor at your side; you avoid conflicts of interest, incur no additional costs for training and continuing education, and can focus entirely on your core business.

At the start of a CMS process, we first conduct an industry-specific risk analysis within your company to determine where—and if at all—compliance needs exist. We then work with you to develop internal guidelines or train your employees. Together, we explore ways to prevent and identify violations whenever possible and determine the best course of action for addressing any identified violations.

Possible Areas of Compliance

Cross-border transactions—and thus cross-border shipments of goods—are heavily influenced by customs and foreign trade regulations. Processing these transactions in compliance with the rules requires a thorough understanding of the legal framework.

This ranges from seemingly simple declarations regarding the origin of goods, through the specification of the customs tariff number, to determining whether export control authorizations are required.

On the one hand, specialized expertise is necessary to ensure compliance. On the other hand, a risk-based CMS must be implemented for customs and foreign trade-related activities in order to systematically minimize the numerous potential risks.
Since the number of customs and foreign trade audits is increasing and system-related violations are penalized more severely by authorities than “normal” work errors, we recommend that you implement and regularly review a CMS.

Please contact us if we can assist you with this.

Many companies rely on external data protection officers to comply with strict legal requirements.

Advantages of an external solution

Predictable costs
Liability protection
Highly qualified and experienced external data protection officer,
No training costs
An unbiased, pragmatic approach

The employment law protections against termination for an in-house data protection officer are also often a reason for choosing an external solution.

Let us advise you

Our experts and data protection officers will be happy to advise you on any questions regarding data protection or to train your staff.

Tax compliance focuses on identifying and optimizing structures, workflows, and circumstances within a company that may have tax implications. The goal is to ensure tax-compliant behavior and actions.

Examples

Optimizing deadline tracking
Verifying compliance with tax accounting and record-keeping requirements
What are the risks associated with hidden profit distributions?
Do invoices pursuant to Section 15 of the German Value-Added Tax Act (UStG) contain the required information, etc.?