Digitalization and Corporate Law – A View from Germany

Abstract

Digitalization revolutionizes all legal areas, including corporate law. The article deals with different impacts of digitalization on communication schemes in corporations, such as virtual general assemblies or communication patterns in board of directors, also encompassing communication with third parties, namely investors. The legal framework for these communication patterns refer not only to corporate but also to media regulations, data protections, as well as capital market law. Digitalization also has an impact on liability of directors: As Big Data and new algorithms improve the information base for decision making of directors they are at the same time obliged to make use of it. On the other hand, IT-security has become one of the main tasks for directors as digitalization of all work flows in enterprises requires necessary IT-security standards in order to avoid existential risks in case of attacks. Furthermore, Blockchain as a new technology enables the secure identification of all kind of transactions, including automatized contracts (so-called smart contracts) which could enhance procedures in corporations. New problems arise concerning the use of Blockchain as an investment form such as DAO Ethereum. Finally, the phenomenon of close cooperation between different partners by using digital work flows and semi-intelligent agents (so-called industry 4.0) is discussed.