Ulrich Seibert (August 8, 1954) is a German jurisprudent, he was head of the division for German company law and corporate governance at the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection in Berlin until 8. 2020, and is honorary professor for economic law at the faculty of law of the Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf.
Ulrich Seibert is the son of Edith Seibert, an informal painter, and Claus Seibert, judge at the Federal Court of Justice of Germany in Karlsruhe. He studied law in Tübingen, Göttingen and Freiburg. He completed his first state examination in law in 1979. In 1982, he graduated at the University of Hamburg and received the title J. D. After study periods in Florence (Professor Luigi Lombardi Vallauri, filosofia del diritto presso l’Universita degli Studi di Firenze) and Paris, and completing the second state examination in law, Seibert became a judge at the labour court and then at the local court in Hamburg. In 1986, he moved to the Federal Ministry of Justice in Bonn, where he became head of the division for cabinet and parliamentary affairs under Minister Klaus Kinkel in 1990. He has been head of the division for company law and corporate governance since 1992 and was appointed Ministerialrat in 1997.
In 2001, Seibert was awarded the title "honorary professor" by the law faculty of the Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf. He is one of the directors of the Center for Business and Corporate Law (Institut für Unternehmensrecht) at the Heinrich-Heine University. He is member of the Board of the Schwarz-Schütte Foundation Potsdam (as part of the Leo Baeck Foundation Brandenburg), member of the Bureau of the Corporate Governance committee of the OECD, Paris, and member of the Board of Trustees of the Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz e.V. (DSW). Since 2021 he is Member of the advisory board of the Corporate Governance Institute at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
Since the early nineties, Ulrich Seibert has drafted most laws within the field of company law and corporate governance and has represented Germany also at EU, OECD and G20 level. He was responsible for drafting the 1994 law on "kleine Aktiengesellschaften" (closed limited companies on shares), the law concerning the Corporate Sector Supervision and Transparency Act (Gesetz zur Kontrolle und Transparenz im Unternehmensbereich – KonTraG, 1998), which was the first important corporate governance reform in Germany, the law on no-par value shares (Stückaktiengesetz – StückAG, 1998), the law on registered shares and the facilitating of the exercise of voting rights (Gesetz zur Namensaktie und zur Erleichterung der Stimmrechtsausübung – NaStraG, 2001), and the Act on Corporate Integrity and Modernization of the Law to Challenge Decisions by the Shareholders' Meeting (Gesetz zur Unternehmensintegrität und Modernisierung des Anfechtungsrechts – UMAG, 2004).
During the 16th legislative period in Germany, Seibert prepared numerous legislative proposals, such as the Act on Electronic Commercial Registers (Gesetz über das Elektronische Handels- und Genossenschaftsregister sowie das Unternehmensregister – EHUG) and the Act to Modernize the Law Governing Private Limited Companies and to Combat Abuses (Gesetz zur Modernisierung des GmbH-Rechts und zur Bekämpfung von Missbräuchen – MoMiG, 2008) – which constituted the first major GmbH reform since the creation of this law in the late 19th century. He also drafted the politically controversial amendment of the Volkswagen Law, the Act Implementing the Shareholder Rights Directive (Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Aktionärsrechterichtlinie – ARUG), and the Act on Appropriate Executive Board Remuneration (Gesetz zur Angemessenheit der Vorstandsvergütung – VorstAG). During the financial crisis of 2007–2008, he was charged with the corporation law aspects of the stabilization measures, including the Financial Market Stabilization Act (Finanzmarktstabilisierungsgesetz – FMStG, 2008). Following this, he worked on the legal regulation of professional partnerships with limited liability (Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mit beschränkter Berufshaftung – PartGmbB
In the course of the 18th legislative period, Seibert drew up the politically acclaimed draft on the introduction of a female quota in supervisory boards in the private sector (FüPoG law in force since 1 May 2015). He also worked on the 2014 reform of stock company law, the proposal for an EU directive to amend the Shareholder Rights Directive, (implemented into German Law as "ARUG II" in the 19th legislative period. At COVID-19 times in 2020, he created the regulation for the virtual general meeting, which gave German companies the option of holding their general meetings purely online. Seibert left the Ministry at the end of August 2020.
Seibert was the Ministry's 'liaison manager' to the government commission "Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex" (German CG Code) from its beginning. He also coined the term "legal designer", which refers to a ministry official who designs draft laws.
Ulrich Seibert is the author and publisher of several books and has written more than 200 essays in the field of commercial law and corporate governance. He is an art collector (Pop-Surrealism, Low Brow - permanent showroom in Berlin: www.seibert-collection.art) and is a significant investor. He is married and has four children.
Julius Friedrich Heinrich Abegg was a German criminalist.
In corporate governance, codetermination is a practice where workers of an enterprise have the right to vote for representatives on the board of directors in a company. It also refers to staff having binding rights in work councils on issues in their workplace. The first laws requiring worker voting rights include the Oxford University Act 1854 and the Port of London Act 1908 in the United Kingdom, the Act on Manufacturing Companies of 1919 in Massachusetts in the United States, and the Supervisory Board Act 1922 in Germany, which codified collective agreement from 1918.
Carlo Schmid was a German academic and politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
Hermann Ulrich Kantorowicz was a German jurist.
The Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine was a grand duchy in western Germany that existed from 1806 to 1918. The grand duchy originally formed from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1806 as the Grand Duchy of Hesse. It assumed the name Hesse und bei Rhein in 1816 to distinguish itself from the Electorate of Hesse, which had formed from neighbouring Hesse-Kassel. Colloquially, the grand duchy continued to be known by its former name of Hesse-Darmstadt.
Robert Weimar was a German professor of law and psychologist.
Dr Richard Rosendorff was a German lawyer, who worked in Berlin.
German company law (Gesellschaftsrecht) is an influential legal regime for companies in Germany. The primary form of company is the public company or Aktiengesellschaft (AG). A private company with limited liability is known as a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH). A partnership is called a Kommanditgesellschaft (KG).
MoMiG is the acronym for the "Modernisierung des GmbH-Rechts und zur Bekämpfung von Missbräuchen" or "Law for the Modernisation of the German Limited Liability Company Law and the Prevention of Misuse". MoMiG came into effect in Germany on 1 November 2008.
In Germany, smoking is widespread and is subject to very few and lax regulations compared to other countries in Europe. Tobacco taxes in Germany are among the lowest in Europe. Germany ranks last on the Tobacco Control Scale and has sometimes been referred to as the "smoker's paradise" of Europe. According to German addiction researcher Heino Stöver, Germany has "[...] more cigarette vending machines than any other country in the world."
The Volkswagen Act is a set of German federal laws enacted in 1960, regulating the privatization of Volkswagenwerk GmbH into the Volkswagen Group. In order to maintain government control in the privately owned company, it stipulated that the votes in major shareholder meeting resolutions require 4/5th (80%) agreement. This part of the law was deemed to violate the "free movement of capital" principle of European Union corporate law. After a series of challenges from 2007 to 2013, the German parliament finally amended the part in 2013 to EU Court of Justice satisfaction.
Hans Carl Nipperdey was a German labour law expert who worked as the president of the Federal Labour Court from 1954 to 1963. He was a controversial figure due to his close association with his complicit work with Nazi government from 1933, his membership of the Academy for German Law, and his work to systematise Nazi labour laws through his commentaries with Alfred Hueck.
Wolfgang Zapf was a German sociologist.
The Law on Control and Transparency in Business is a comprehensive law passed by the German Bundestag on 5 March 1998. It entered into force on 1 May 1998, although some provisions were adopted at later dates. It set new standards of corporate governance for German publicly listed companies. It is similar to the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
Karl Engisch was a German jurist and a Philosopher of Law. He was described by Hans Joachim Hirsch as one of the "outstanding theorists of criminal justice of the [twentieth] century".
The German Law on the Protection of Trade Secrets, or Trade Secrets Law in short, serves to protect business secrets against unauthorized acquisition, use, and disclosure. The law implements the Directive (EU) 2016/943 on the Protection of Trade Secrets in German law. It replaces the right to secrecy, which was previously regulated in §§ 17-19 of the Act Against Unfair Competition.
The Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung mbH is a German federally owned company based in Peine, Lower Saxony, Germany.
Gerhard Schricker was a German legal scholar with a focus on intellectual property and competition law. He was a full professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich from 1973 to 2000 and served as Director of the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Law between 1971 and 2003.
Werner Flume was a German jurist and professor of Roman law, private law, tax law and a legal historian. He has significantly influenced the modern development of German private law and has been called a "lawyer of the century" for his contributions.
The Reichsgesetzblatt, abbreviated RGBl., was the official journal or government gazette of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945, thus covering the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and Nazi Germany.
Joachim Jahn: Ein Handwerksmeister in der Gesetzesschmiede: Ulrich Seibert führt die Feder bei der "Aktienrechtsreform in Permanenz". In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 10. Juli 2009, S. 18. (A master craftsman in the law smithy: Ulrich Seibert leads the quill at the 'company law reform in perpetuity')
Literature by and about Ulrich Seibert in the German National Library catalogue
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
