Compliance describes the necessity to ensure the legality of business actions through measures taken by the operational organisation. This applies equally to the management and supervisory bodies as well as to the people employed in the company. A changing understanding of regulation, the ongoing consolidation of legal requirements and the widespread sanctioning of legal violations are increasingly prompting companies to deal with the requirements associated with compliance. In addition to basic legal analyses, this requires above all the development of business administration’s implementation and communication strategies. This also includes the development and implementation of basic corporate ethical principles.

The Center for Corporate Compliance at EBS Law School is a research centre in which academic research and events on all compliance-related issues are conducted in cooperation with companies and sponsors. At the same time, the center serves to incorporate compliance into university education in law and business administration and to offer a qualified professional development programme.

The research work of the Center is divided into four pillars:

• Fundamentals of Compliance
• Bank and Capital Market Compliance
• Compliance Organisation and Corporate Responsibility
• International

The Fundamentals of Compliance deals with compliance issues of a general nature, i.e. those that cannot be specifically assigned to a particular industry or sector. These include, for example, the foundations of compliance under the law of associations or labour law. Topics such as whistle blower systems, internal investigations, the compliance officer or liability for faulty compliance are dealt with here.

The Bank and Capital Market Compliance pillar considers that the legal development to be observed in the banking industry, on the one hand, often has a guiding function, and on the other hand is bound to corporate organisation obligations in a special often highly intense way. Both these factors should have key status.

Compliance-flanking areas are treated in the sector Compliance

Organisation and Corporate Responsibility. These include, on the one hand, the business administration implementation of compliance, but also related empirical questions, such as its measurability or the contribution it makes to value creation in the company. These topics are addressed in close cooperation with the EBS Business School.

In view of the increasing realisation in corporate life that compliance cannot be achieved by legal regulations or economic incentives alone, questions of value-based corporate management and corporate ethics are dealt with under the concept of corporate responsibility.

The International section considers the fact that compliance phenomena are rarely limited to one legal system but have multilateral impact. Developments in one state also often serve as a model for those in other jurisdictions. This research pillar therefore focuses on comparative law topics. It also includes the results of the working group “Compliance and Anti-Corruption” of the Law Schools Global League. The Center’s Director is a member of this working group.