Category

German Labor Law

Business in GermanyEmployment Law GermanyGerman Citizenship and ImmigrationGerman Labor LawGerman Tax LawPosting Skilled Workers to GermanyStarting Business

How to Lawfully Post Skilled Workers to Germany

Experts in Global Mobility, Visas and Residence Law in Germany The German law boutique SE Legal specialises in cross-border employee assignments and secondments to Germany. The firm's legal experts have many years of practical experience with everything non-German expats and their family members need. The SE Global Business Mobility lawyers can assist specifically in the following areas: Secondment of third-country (ie. non-EU) nationals to Germany, particularly from the UK and from the USA Assignments of…
Bernhard Schmeilzl
August 20, 2026
Business in GermanyEmployment Law GermanyGerman Labor Law

Staff Cuts in Germany – How to Avoid Legal Blunders

Dismissal of Employees in Germany: A Guide for Employers Business downsizing forces companies to take painful measures. To ensure that redundancies on operational grounds (betriebsbedingte Kündigung) survive the strict scrutiny by the German employment tribunal (Arbeitsgericht), employers in Germany must strictly adhere to a long list of formal and legal requirements. Even minor errors in the process can render redundancies invalid and will lead to costly severance payments or unfair dismissal proceedings. This guide takes…
Bernhard Schmeilzl
August 12, 2026
Business in GermanyBusiness Tax & Fiscal ObligationsEmployment Law GermanyGerman Labor LawGerman Tax Law

Posting Employees to Germany: Employment, Immigration and Social Security Risks

Checklist for UK Companies Posting Employees to Germany Guest Article by Martin Halfmann, LL.M. | Employment Lawyer at Schlun & Elseven A UK company sending an employee to Germany for a project, a client engagement, or market development work is not simply moving one person across a border. Three separate legal regimes apply at once - employment standards, immigration, and social security and tax - and each has its own rules, its own thresholds, and…
SE Legal
August 11, 2026
Business in GermanyBusiness Tax & Fiscal ObligationsGerman Labor Law

UK Companies Supplying Workers to Germany Need an AÜG Permit

Labour Leasing (Staff Augmentation) Licensing Requirements under German Employment Law Guest Article by Martin Halfmann, LL.M. | Employment Lawyer at Schlun & Elseven German clients increasingly look to UK-based contractors to fill short-term gaps in specialist trades, from construction to engineering to marine crew. What is often missed on the UK side is that supplying staff into a German operation can trigger a licensing requirement that has nothing to do with immigration law and everything…
SE Legal
August 11, 2026
Business in GermanyGerman Labor LawGerman Law

Termination of Employees during Parental Leave in Germany

Can an Employee in Germany be let off while in parental leave? German labour law is very protective of employees. Every business with more than 10 full time employees on the payroll must be aware of the specific German employee protention rules (Kündigungsschutzgesetz). For details see this post: https://www.crosschannellawyers.co.uk/german-labor-law-the-basics-of-employee-protection-against-dismissal/   Special protection of employees during parental leave Regardless of the number of employees, there are additional special German laws protecting all parents who are on…
Bernhard Schmeilzl
November 17, 2023
Business in GermanyCivil actionGerman Corporate LawGerman Labor LawGerman LawGerman ProbateGerman Succession & Inheritance Law

Less Cricket. More Baseball!

GrafLegal creates US-German Legal Desk Too much cricket, not enough baseball! That's essentially what our marketing people told us after finding that 65% of all posts on our various law blogs deal with UK-German legal issues, only 35% with USA related topics. We may just have gone a bit too much Downton Abbey on everyone. Enough of that, let's balance the scales! The German law firm for US-German legal matters To start off our US…
Bernhard Schmeilzl
March 29, 2022
Business in GermanyGerman Labor LawGerman Law

Relocate from UK to Germany

Thousands of German and Austrian Expats leave Great Britain and move back to Europe How do we know this? Because the enquiries from German and Austrian companies asking us about how to quickly relocate their employees from the United Kingdom back to Germany have skyrocketed. The two main reasons for the exodus are: (1) German and Austrian expats in England feel unwanted and do no longer see a good future for themselves and their family…
Bernhard Schmeilzl
December 10, 2018
Family LawGerman Labor LawGerman LawStarting Business

What is a “polizeiliches Führungszeugnis”?

And when do you need it? The German “polizeiliches Führungszeugnis” is the equivalent of the British “enhanced criminal record certificate” as defined in sec. 115 Police Act 1997, sometimes also referred to as “certificate of conduct”, “good-conduct certificate” or “police clearance certificate”. The Führungszeugnis is an official document issued on special green paper by the German Bundesamt für Justiz (Federal Office of Justice) in Bonn. It lists criminal offences above a certain threshold, usually if someone…
Bernhard Schmeilzl
September 25, 2018
German Labor LawGerman Law

Post-Contractual Non-Compete Clauses in German Employment Agreements

... and how to get rid of them Many employers want to prevent their employees to work for competitors when the employment ends. Under German labor law, this can be achieved by putting a post-contractual non-compete clause (nachvertragliches Wettbewerbsverbot) in the employment contract. The typical standard wording for such a non compete clause would be this: The Employee shall not, for a period of 24 months following the end of the employment and within the…
Bernhard Schmeilzl
March 21, 2018
Business in GermanyGerman Corporate LawGerman Labor LawGerman Law

Pitfalls of German Contract Law and German Company Regulations (Part 1)

Foreign Contract Lawyers beware of surprising German Laws and Directives! The German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, BGB, available in English), the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch, HGB, partly available in English), the German Act on Corporations (Aktiengesetz, AktG) and the Act on Limited Liability Companies (GmbHG, available in English) are all full of surprising regulations which can essentially void any agreement or deed drafted by a naive (in the nicest sense) British or US lawyer who…
Bernhard Schmeilzl
February 20, 2017