Legal Compliance Management

Ensuring compliance with compliance with legal requirements in the EHS area is no easy task. Companies must take into account a large number of legal and regulatory provisions, compliance with which must be ensured within the company.Responsible for this organization is the managing director or a responsible officer appointed by the managing director in accordance with §9 VStG and/or §23 ArbIG. In order to minimize the liability risk of managing directors and responsible officers, they must effectively organize the processes for compliance with legal provisions in the company by taking appropriate precautions – or in other words, implement a legal compliance or legal management system. If this is the case, it is also referred to as a “legally compliant organization”.

In 5 steps to a court-proof organization:

  • 1
    Creation of a legal register and register of notices
  • 2
    Determination of individual legal obligations from regulations and decisions
  • 3
    Delegation and implementation of legal obligations within the company
  • 4
    Monitoring the implementation of and compliance with legal obligations
  • 5
    Identification and implementation of legal/regulatory changes

If these 5 steps are effectively implemented in the company, the managing director (or a responsible representative) has fulfilled his duty of care and it is difficult to accuse him of being at fault. The easiest way to implement a legally compliant organization is with legal management software (or legal compliance software). However, you can also achieve your goal without a software solution, for example with the help of Excel. The only important thing is that the five steps of court-proof organization are effectively anchored in the company. This is more a question of the commitment of managers and the emphasis placed on implementation within the company than which tool is used to implement the whole thing.

Our offer

We are happy to support you in setting up a legal management system or a court-proof organization.

Take advantage of our many years of experience in the area of EHS legal compliance and minimize your liability risk.

 

Our services

  • If required, we can carry out a “Check court-proof organization” to give you a clear picture of the current status and gaps in your company.
  • With our many years of experience in the field of EHS legal compliance, we can support you in setting up a legally compliant organization in your company.
  • We identify the legal provisions relevant to you and create a legal register
  • We provide the legal changes (legal change service) with corresponding implementation instructions
  • We search for and implement the optimal legal management software for your requirements if required
  • On request, we can take over the maintenance of the entire legal management system in your company

Authority management

The majority of
changes to operating facilities requiring approval
are submitted too late or in some cases not at all.According to the legal provisions (Industrial Code, AWG, WRG etc.), a measure requiring approval must be approved before construction (i.e. before construction begins!). “Being approved” means having a legally binding decision.

As changes in companies are being made at ever shorter notice and authorities are often overloaded, many system changes are only approved after they have already been implemented. This entails a not inconsiderable liability risk, as there is no exemption in the law. This means that the construction and/or operation of an installation before a legally binding approval notice has been issued represents a particular liability risk.

Course of an approval procedure

  • 1
    Clarification of the necessary approvals for the project
  • 2
    Clarification of the existing scope of approval and delimitation of the approval requirements (avoidance of duplicate approvals!)
  • 3
    Planning of the measure and preliminary research into the approval requirements (legislation, standards, state of the art, etc.)
  • 4
    Preliminary discussion of the measure with the authority or expert and labor inspectorate. It is important to sound out the maximum scope of approval and to realize this (e.g. operating times) so as not to be limited in the event of subsequent expansions.
  • 5
    Preliminary discussion of the measure with neighbors (if necessary)
  • 6
    Preparation of the submission documents
  • 7
    Submission of the application documents to the approval authority
  • 8
    Negotiation on site – it is particularly important to “negotiate”, i.e. to “negotiate away” any excessive demands and conditions with plausible arguments. Once conditions have been laid down in a decision, they cannot simply be removed afterwards!
  • 9
    Notification and delivery by the authority
  • 10
    Review and, if necessary, appeal against the decision

Most common errors in the approval process

  • No submission (because the approval requirement is not known)
  • Submission too late and thus construction/operation before obtaining approval
  • Application exclusively for the currently planned operation (e.g. operating hours) and no consideration of future developments.

  • No “negotiating” in the approval negotiations and thus acceptance of excessive requirements (the state of the art is often not precisely definable).

  • No professional examination of the decision or failure to meet the objection deadline

Advantages of external support

  • You save time and resources and can concentrate on your core business
  • Our experts know the requirements for approval so that subsequent improvements can be avoided
  • Legal certainty by obtaining approval before realization/installation
  • Avoidance of approval delays and the associated operational downtime or impairment of competitiveness
  • Experienced external representatives at authorities
  • Avoidance of excessive claims/requirements by negotiating on an equal footing with experts through our experts

Our offer

We will be happy to assist you in determining the licensing requirement and in handling the licensing procedures in accordance with the following legal provisions:

  • Trade, Commerce and Industry Regulation Act (Gewerbeordnung GewO) (business premises license under trade law)
  • Water Rights Act – WRG (water law permit for water abstraction, storage of water-polluting substances and wastewater discharge)
  • Waste Management Act (AWG) (waste law permit for the collection or recovery of hazardous or non-hazardous waste)
  • Other permits – e.g. building law, nature conservation law, railroad law, boiler plant law, forestry law (with the involvement of appropriate experts)

Our offer

We are happy to support you in handling your licensing procedure in accordance with GewO, AWG, WRG etc.
Thanks to our many years of experience in the field of legal compliance and as an engineering office for technical chemistry, we are highly recognized by the authorities and can therefore obtain the best possible approval for you.

Further services within the scope of authority management:

  • Participation in and support for official inspections (in particular IPPC systems)
  • Support with the interpretation and implementation of requirements
  • Examination and, if necessary, implementation of the adaptation obligations for IPPC installations: Within one year of the publication of a BAT (best available techniques) conclusion on the main activity of an IPPC installation, the installation owner must check in accordance with § 81b GewO 1994 whether the state of the art relating to the IPPC installation has changed significantly. If necessary, the required adjustment measures must be taken immediately.
  • Implementation of recording and reporting obligations for IPPC systems
  • Establishment or optimization of a notification management system (as there are often many notifications with a large number of conditions in Austria due to the low approval threshold in trade law, practice has shown that long-term and secure compliance with notifications is de facto only possible with electronic support).