Legal register as the basis for a legally compliant organization

Companies are not only required to keep up with the times with their products and services and to continuously develop. This is the only way to achieve lasting business success. In this context, it is also important for companies to comply with all relevant legal regulations - because legal certainty and legal compliance are essential points for any business operation.

The focus is therefore on the so-called legal register. It maps all relevant laws and regulations that an organization must comply with. The legal register thus ensures that, on the one hand, all laws and regulations relevant to an organization are known and, on the other hand, that they are always up to date. In general, knowledge of the relevant regulations for ordinary business activities is one of the basic obligations of every company management. The law makes no distinction between small and large companies.

Risks in the form of sanctions and reputational damage should be averted

The keyword is: compliance! This refers to the duty of corporate bodies to ensure compliance with binding regulations within the company. The Hamburg Chamber of Industry and Commerce, for example, states: "The term originally comes from American law and means 'compliance with the law' and 'conformity'. In business life, compliance refers to all measures that are required to adhere to legal regulations and unwritten codes of conduct. In addition to legal standards, the term compliance therefore also includes adherence to self-imposed rules, such as internal company codes."

And further: "Companies can suffer high material and immaterial losses as a result of white-collar crime. The aim of compliance is to avoid white-collar crime and liability and compensation claims or fines. At the same time, the aim is to build and maintain reputation and trust in order to secure (future) business relationships. Risks in the form of sanctions and damage to reputation should be averted and the company's public image improved at the same time. This not only serves to attract and retain customers, but also to attract employees."

Large number of regulations possible

A legal register is therefore a good way to record and manage the legal requirements of an organization in a structured manner and to communicate them to the responsible employees. Depending on the area of responsibility and industry, this can range from a manageable number to a large number of regulations. The main focus is on avoiding organizational culpability, i.e. a breach of organizational obligations or failure to comply with legal requirements for operational organizational measures.

Speaking of organizational duties: The employer's organizational obligation is to define operational processes in such a way that no hazards arise for its employees. This primarily includes determining the operational organization. This includes, for example, ensuring a suitable organization, the safe establishment of operating sites, the procurement of safe work equipment, the instruction of employees, the assessment of working conditions and documentation, the coordination of cooperation between several companies and the performance of occupational health check-ups.

Avoid liability cases resulting from organizational negligence

This is an important point for all organizations and their managers. Tort law stipulates that liability or fault for damage that occurs within the sphere of an organization is attributed to the organization. This can also apply to the responsible managing director/board member. If damage occurs, the injured party is entitled to compensation. A legal register significantly limits these risks of avoiding liability cases resulting from organizational fault. In terms of legal certainty and legal compliance, it is now almost mandatory to keep a professional legal register to minimize business risk!

The basis of the legal register is the knowledge of whether a company is affected by certain laws and regulations. Therefore, legal registers must always be highly individualized and modular or scalable. This enables organizations to maintain a continuous overview of the legal bases, approval notices and other binding obligations relevant to the company. This ranges from the individual creation and regular updating of regulations to the review of internal implementation as part of a compliance audit.

Legal registers must always be highly individualized

We at Höppner Management & Consultant provide support in the creation and maintenance of legal registers with the following services:

We work with you to determine which laws and regulations from general environmental/occupational health and safety and energy law apply to your company.

• Based on these regulations, we create a legal register for your company with the resulting corporate obligations.
• We create a standard-compliant legal register (in accordance with ISO 14001 / ISO 50001 / ISO 45001/) with delegation of duties.
• We monitor changes in environmental/occupational health and safety and energy law and update your obligations accordingly.
• Adherence to legal obligations can be checked and evaluated accordingly through annual compliance audits at the site.

Therefore, legal registers must always be highly individualized and modular or scalable. This enables organizations to maintain a continuous overview of the company-relevant legal bases, approval notices and other binding obligations. This ranges from the individual creation and regular updating of regulations to the review of internal implementation as part of a compliance audit. Based on an on-site analysis of the operational conditions, the legal register provides the key operator obligations as recommendations for action in relation to the legal provisions from the relevant areas of law - translated into practical terms for the relevant employees.

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Image source: © Photo by Drew Dizzy Graham on Unsplash