The law imposes mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence obligations on companies in Germany as of 1 January 2023.
By Paul A. Davies, Stefan Bartz, and Alexander Wilhelm
On 25 June 2021, the Bundesrat, the legislative chamber of the German Federal States, approved the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (Lieferkettensorgfaltsgesetz). The law now only needs to be signed by the Federal President (Bundespräsident) and published before entering into force. Two weeks before, the coalition parties reached a last-minute compromise to adopt the law ahead of the end of the legislative period in September.
This blog post will examine the amendments to the prior draft law resulting from that compromise and consider how the Act will impact companies in Germany (for more information on the draft law, please see Latham’s previous blog).