The Company Register

The Company Register (UReg) is the central platform for making company data accessible. The body maintaining the Company register is the Bundesanzeiger Verlag, which acts as the judicial authority for this purpose.

The most important data which needs to be published is centrally compiled here and made available electronically for interested parties at www.unternehmensregister.de. This includes access to the commercial, cooperative, corporation and partnership register and the published and filed annual financial statements.

Legal / History

The legal basis for the introduction of the Company Register was the EHUG (Act on the Electronic Commercial Register and register of cooperative societies and the Company Register) and the TUG (Transparency Directive Implementation Act).

With the entry into force of the DiRUG (Act on the Implementation of the Digitalisation Directive) on 1 August 2022, the Company register has taken over areas of responsibility from the Federal Gazette in order to standardise the register system. Since then, companies subject to disclosure requirements, for example, no longer have to submit their accounting documents and company reports - depending on the start of the financial year - to the Federal Gazette for publication, but must transmit them for inclusion in the Company register. As a result, the body keeping the register is also obliged to check whether the documents submitted have been submitted in full and on time and, in the event of missing or incomplete submission, to inform the administrative authority responsible for carrying out administrative fine proceedings.

Transmission of company data

The publication platform (www.publikations-plattform.de) enables the transmission of capital market information as well as, for financial years beginning after 31.12.2021, of accounting documents and company reports to the Company register.

Registration is required for the transmission of data to the Company register. The Company Register Ordinance (URV) and the Judicial Administration Costs Act (JVKostG) apply. For transmitters of accounting documents and company reports, a one-time electronic identity check is required. Natural persons who actually make a transmission to the Company register on behalf of a company subject to disclosure requirements must first identify themselves electronically. The identity check is carried out on the basis of the identification procedures specified in section 3(3) nos. 1 to 3 BRV. Please also refer to the General Terms of Use at Legal / General Terms and Conditions.

The relevant file format for transmissions is "XML" according to section 11 URV (Exception: annual financial reports and accounting documents of domestic issuers in the ESEF format "XHTML"). They may also submit other known formats (PDF and Office). For this purpose, the register-keeping body shall offer, pursuant to section 15 URV, a conversion service into the format specified pursuant to section 11 URV as well as graphic and design services to those obliged to publish or disclose. The fees for these services can be found in the overview "Fees and Charges" at Legal / General Terms and Conditions.

Only since the DiRUG came into force are accounting documents and company reports for financial years beginning after 31.12.2021 to be submitted to the Company register for disclosure. Accounting documents and company reports with a financial year beginning before 01.01.2022 must still be submitted to the Federal Gazette.

The balance sheet navigator, which you can access via the start page of the publication platform, provides support on the question of which disclosure medium you need to submit your documents to.

Access to company data

Via the Company register (www.unternehmensregister.de) you have access to

• accounting documents and company reports (e.g. annual financial statements)
• publications and other information made available to the public pursuant to the Securities Trading Act
• entries in the commercial, cooperative, corporation and partnership register and documents filed there as well as register announcements
• announcements and publications from the Federal Gazette pursuant to § 8b par. 2 nos. 5, 7 and 8 HGB,
• notices of publications under capital market law
• announcements of the insolvency courts
• announcements by authorities pursuant to the German Securities Trading Act or the German Investment Act
• entries published in the Shareholders' Forum