The draft is titled “to strengthen the cooperative legal form” and is registered as Bundestag paper 21/8410. Its goal is to adapt cooperative law to the ongoing digitalisation of business and private legal transactions.
Specifically, text form is to be anchored in cooperatives as far as possible. Meetings and resolutions are to be made easier, as is the digital supply of information to members. To make the legal form more attractive, the government is taking up various proposals from practice, such as the treatment of investing members and the suspension of board duties during maternity leave, parental leave, caregiving, or illness.
To speed up formations, a database of the cooperative audit associations to be involved is to be created. The draft also aims to accelerate the review of the promotion purpose by the registry court and to introduce a standard deadline for entries in the cooperative register. In measures against dubious cooperatives, proposals from the Bundesrat are being taken into account, including the clarification that mere capital investment is not a permissible promotion purpose.
Source: Deutscher Bundestag
