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SECEX published on 31 July 2023 an official notice of initiation of a new investigation into possible resumption of antidumping duties applied (but immediately suspended) to Brazilian imports of ethanolamines, monoethanolamines and triethanolamine, from Germany.

The last sunset review concerning ethanolamines, decided by CAMEX Resolution No. 7/2019, resulted in a five year extension of the antidumping duties for imports originating in the United States and Germany. However, the antidumping duties applicable to the Brazilian imports from German were suspended due to the existence of doubts as to the probable future development of imports from this origin.

By judgment dated 23 March 2023 (2 K 172/19), the Tax Court (Finanzgericht) Hamburg determined to what extent a tax office may request the submission of emails within the scope of a tax audit.
The Tax Court ruled that the request for submission of an overall journal in the form of a list of all emails, including emails that are not relevant for tax purposes (and that are not internal correspondence), was unlawful. According to the view of the Tax Court, the tax offices is not limited to conducting interviews since emails have an increased evidentiary evidence.

The recently published ruling 14 K 588/20 of the Munich Tax Court dated October 27, 2022, addresses the case of a lump-sum TP adjustment at the end of the fiscal year that resulted in a lump sum increase in resale prices and thus in an additional intercompany charge to the German distributor.

On 5 May 2023, the Federal Office of Administration (FOA), the competent authority for the German Transparency Register, has once again published new interpretation notes to the German Anti-Money Laundering Law.
In these, the FOA now also comments for the first time on the extended transparency register obligations of foreign companies and legal entities such as foundations and trusts (“foreign associations”) with direct or indirect real estate ownership in Germany introduced by the Sanctions Enforcement Act II.

The German Whistleblower Protection Act was (finally) passed on 12 May 2023, after several attempts, following final amendments proposed by the Mediation Committee on 9 May 2023, which have now been accepted by the Federal Parliament (Bundestag) and the Federal Council (Bundesrat). The long overdue law serves to implement the European Whistleblower Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/1937), which actually provided for an implementation deadline of December 2021. The law will now come into force in mid-June 2023.

On 18 April 2023, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs published the much anticipated draft bill on the exact requirements of how to meet the duty to record working time. The Draft Bill was published against the backdrop of a ruling by the Federal Labor Court in September 2022. Germany’s highest labor court ruled that employers — regardless of the size of the company and the existence of a works council — must record the working hours of their employees (Ref.: 1 ABR 22/21).