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Textile manufacturing in India: months of struggle for an agreement
Photo: Joerg Boethling / imago images / Joerg Boethling
Large German companies are threatened with fines of up to two percent of global annual group sales if they violate the planned supply chain law.
This is provided for in the revised draft law submitted to the Reuters news agency.
According to government sources, this should be initiated by the cabinet as early as next week.
Companies with a fine of 175,000 euros or more can be temporarily excluded from public contracts.
The ministries involved have agreed on this.
From 2023, German companies are to be obliged to take action against human rights violations and environmental sins at their foreign suppliers.
The bill was sent to the federal states on Monday.
You can comment until evening.
The short deadline was justified with the cabinet meeting next Wednesday.
New rules planned for hundreds of companies
The amount of the fines was still open.
The bill now lists fines of up to EUR 800,000, EUR 500,000 and EUR 100,000, depending on the severity of the administrative offense.
With an annual turnover of more than 400 million euros, a fine of up to two percent of global turnover would be possible in certain cases.
From 2023 only corporations with more than 3000 employees in Germany will be affected, and from 2024 also companies with over 1000 employees.
This would affect more than 600 corporations in the first step and almost 2900 companies in the second step.
The draft originally sent by Heil for internal government consultation two weeks ago had been stopped by the Ministry of Economic Affairs due to a lack of agreements.
Heil, Development Aid Minister Gerd Müller (CSU) and Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) had previously struggled for an agreement for months.
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mik / Reuters