Signatures at the bottom of company e-mails

I just wanted to know if anyone knew the reason why companies in Germany are adding Geschäftsführer, Bankverbindung, and Registergericht to the email signature.

Are all companies supposed to be doing this? Is any additional information supposed to be included?

Thanks for the help.

Tis required by law now!

It seems to be on legal grounds...

Noooooooooooooooooooooo. Say it ain't so Joe, please say it ain't so.

From my company legal

"New German legislation mandates that from January 1, 2007, business letters sent out by German companies must include legally required company information (e.g., a line detailing the managing board, company name, registered offices, commercial registries, and commercial register numbers), regardless of the form of letter."

All I know is that the crap that has to go at the end of my mails is now almost one side of A4. No joke. If I type more than 8 lines and print, the printer spews out two pages.

Is an email a letter?

JE the whole text said

"This means that all XYZ companies in Germany must now also include in their e-mails the same information as quoted in business letters. In addition, the company’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) registration number must be included from January 1, 2007. "

We were told it was a EU directive:

Our company mail adds all this at the end of every outgoing mail:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to
which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or legally privileged
material.
If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the
material from any computer. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or
other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by
persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.

You have asked us to correspond with you via the Internet per e-mail.
However, the written version of our document signed by us is the only
authoritative version. Please note that e-mail correspondence can be lost or
falsified, with or without any interference by third persons. Conventional
e-mails are not protected against access by third persons and, therefore,
their confidentiality and/or integrity may not be assured. Moreover, despite
our use of anti-virus software, a virus may enter your systems in
connection with the sending of e-mails. Thus, we are not liable for any
damages resulting out of these circumstances.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Got a link, honey? BTW, I dreamed of you but it was so strange I don't rightly remember what so I won't bother posting it.

I have to say the redtape in this country really does get on my nerves sometimes. My company has been registered over here for 6 months now. You have to do a VAT return EVERY month within 10 days, you have to pay company taxation in advance as soon as you get registered - and the latest game - is they are doing a tax inspection on the company next month. It is a UK Ltd so they are more jumpy I think.

They are just soooooooooooo frigging anal sometimes. The nice side is that being anal means the streets are generally clean, stuff works, the people are more proud and aware of their surroundings etc - but they need to loosen up on business a bit sometimes.

Indeed. As emails are now considered official business mail.
But this may not affect many freelancers.

Emails from Kapitalgesellschaften (so GmbHs and AGs), Personengesellschaften in the Handelsregister (so OHGs and KGs) and eingetragene Einzelunternehmer (e. K.) now require the full signature as used on paper mail.
So if you are a Ltd. or GbR, you are not affected by this legal change.
e.V (Vereine) are also unaffected (thank God, so it doesn't affect my Sportsverein) as all purely private mails.

The legal bit:
HGB §37a
GmbHG §35a
AktG §80

And thus it would look like this:

Firma Blabla e.K.
Geschäftsführer: Max Madeupname
Niederlassung: Somewhere
Handelsregister: HR-A 12345

Somestreet 1
12345 Somewhere

Tel.: 097 - 123 456 78
Fax: 097 - 123 456 79
Mail: MM@blabla.de

NOTE: Your tax number does not have to be given!

Those of you running commercial websites may also want to look into your Impressium pages. Changes have been made to TMG §5 and RStV §55 which may affect you, seek legal advice if appropriate.

Ha! Me is Ltd. End of that little game then.

The legal bit on my business e mail is:

A company incorporated and registered in Germany:
Amtsgericht Muenchen, XXX 123 456; Managing Director, Fred Blogs.

Small compared to all the contact information that comes as a signature and the coprorate, "if it ain't for don't read this" palarver.

I've noticed that all of the emails I've been getting from Siemens lately have had all that too.

Sure seems like a ton of information to just send in standard emails.

Bloody hell, gather the info, save it as signature. Done. Hardly complicated.

Think it is only in Germany that this is being taken seriously and then among the large cap companies. Haven't seen so much on French and UK mails for example.

What name and adress and phone number and fax number is too much?

You spend about a minute putting the legal stuff on as a stadard signature and that's that.

Nah refer back to the beginning of the thread...

It's all the info from the Impressum pages -- bank info, legal info, contact, address, everything

The legal requirements of mentioning the company registration is 14 words at my place.
My company has decided to have the standard indemnity about not reading what isn't meant for you and information sent in good faith etc.

Regarding the address, I HATE it, to get mails with no contact details on.
I want the phone number(s), I want the adress, I want the web site, any alternative e mails etc.

Can't be bothered to translate this but :

Pflichtangaben auch in E-Mails

Seit Jahresanfang müssen laut Gesetz in geschäftlichen E-Mails und anderen geschäftlichen Mitteilungen die handelsrechtlichen Pflichtangaben, die auch auf dem Geschäftsbriefbogen stehen, enthalten sein. Die Regelung gilt für E-Mails an Adressaten (auch Cc: und Bcc:), die nicht Mitarbeiter der eigenen Gesellschaft sind.

So all this "horrible horrible horible oh Christ I miss Tescos" wailing is about the fact that the law applying to written company letters on headed notepaper now applies to e-mails as well.

Sometimes I think I post stuff and few actually read it. *sigh*

It's a load of old legalese bollocks, and somebody will no doubt write a little script for email programs to not bother displaying it.
Waste of time.

Did someone say something?

Chairman of the Supervisory Board: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Board of Managing Directors: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx AG
Legal Status: Aktiengesellschaft
Registered Office: Munich
Listed in the Court Register: Munich HR xxxxxxx
Tax-Id.No.: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
VAT Reg.No.: xxxxxxxxxxxxx

The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and solely for the intended addressee(s).
Unauthorised reproduction, disclosure, modification, and/or distribution of this e-mail may be
unlawful. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete
it from your system. The views expressed in this message do not necessarily reflect those of
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx AG or any of its subsidiary companies. Neither the sender nor
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx AG accept any liability whatsoever for defects of any nature in,
or arising from, this transmission. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error
free, as messages can be intercepted, corrupted, contain viruses, or arrive late or incomplete.

Katrina - my understanding is that a (UK) Ltd. registered in Germany counts as a Kapitalgesellschaft, so the rules apply to them too (also as a European directive applying to UK companies)

JE - you don't need to submit the VAT return in 10 days. You can apply once a year for an automatic extension (Antrag auf Dauerfristverlängerung") which extends the submission period by one month (so becomes one month and 10 days). You do, however need to pay 1/11th of your previous years total VAT return up front to secure this...

More rules and regulations they just love it dont they.

Same laws applying to the more modern medium maybe?

This has to be on the bottom of all my emails from work:



Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender: MinDir Dr. Peter Lange
Geschäftsführer: Prof. Dr. Günter Wess und Dr. Nikolaus Blum
Registergericht: Amtsgericht München HRB 6466

Who precisely? This is a European mandate and since 01.01.07 applies in the UK too. See here

Doesn't actually help that much 'cos just means I have to organise asking nicely, paying more bangers up front and for what? Still have to do it monthly anyway rather than quarterly or even annually in the UK.

It's not a big issue but I certainly feel a lot more "hassled" by the authorities over here compared to the UK. Maybe it does not help that my German is iffy, although ironically on the flip side this means I always have to use German bookeepers and accountants rather than doing any work myself - which in theory should make it all simple. But not a week goes by without some nasty looking letter, promising fire and brimstone if I sneeze too late.

As it happens I am shutting down my Gbr now as it is just too much hassle, and looking to get a UK office again just so I can move as much as possible away from Germany. Regretfully I will not be able to deregister the Ltd company here as the German turnover is above the VAT threshold.

It just doesn't feel very business friendly here. Some of that may be my getting used to a different system of course, but with the higher taxation it really doesn't make for much fun. I also have regular hassle, grief and delays with the Zoll when importing my goods - but discovered that if you just print 10 random bits of paper in English and stamp and sign them a few times it keeps them quiet.

Do you have a link that states that an e-mail is an official business letter?

My earlier link confirms the UK interpretation of the European directive which also is being applied in German law as Katrina indicated.

I find the German system very straightforward once you get into the swing of things. The additional month to submit allows us to collect their taxes before we have to pay them and eases cash flow dramatically. Sometimes we even earn interest on the tax we owe. The advance payment is repaid at the end of the year which comes as a sort of Christmas bonus. My company is also registered in UK for VAT purposes. I find them more draconian and archaic. We only have to submit quarterly and ALWAYS get a refund which they can only send as a cheque and costs an arm an a leg to cash. If we are more than a day late in the quarterly return we get a reminder. The second time late in two years we got a fine of £25 and an automatic VAT liability of over £200, despite the fact we never had to pay them anything in the past. No amount of telephone pleading would let us off this (and yes, I do speak the language) - we simply had to wait for the next quarter to balance it out and get our money back. At least I know that our bookkeeper can call Fritz down the local FA who deals with our tax affairs, knows us all personally, talk sweetly to him and usually get around any short term problem like a late return without penalty. The UK VATmen are all faceless B*****ds...

The only real propose the law serves is so that the Email loggers/data miners of the worlds big brother agencies can search, sort and find emails from any company they want, using any of the "Required" fields in the footer statement. The US has been doing this for ages. I'm sure ya'll have heard of ECHELON, Carnavore and Room 641A or one of the many other Big Brother monitoring systems.

In Linde we have been asked the following to our email footers :

Registered Office: Munich
Listed in the Court Register: Munich HR xxxxxxx
Board : xxxxx

Nothing more, but it does add more lines to the footer. So do not need to add VAT No or anything.

Sorry SB, text out of an Email sent to all by our legal eagles!

In the dream was I on the side of evil or good?

Funny, where I work we weren´t told the legal background. It was just like "We´ve come up with this new and nifty harmonized signature so that we appear more professional to the outside world". And the signature is longer than most of the emails I write. But okay, it lets you brag about your job, and it´s not really bragging because you have to legally include the information...

I've heard that all this information is only necessary if you have not yet established a business relationship.

No Dost, the company registration is legally required on all business mail.
You can take it off if you are e mailing a mate to discuss something far too scandalous and libellous to write on Toytown!

And if any of you write mails offering electronic goods for sale in Germany, your WEEE registration number better be on there innit!

I think I can anticipate what happens if those Amt guys install Skype or some instant messaging software (German Business Tourette Syndrome). :-)

We've had the same info at work - strikes me as funny that it's seemingly been required since January, and people are only now finding out about it!

A quick Google search tells me you work at GSF

hahah, short stuff, this is mine!!

My Name
TM-TT-CPS
o2 (Germany) GmbH & Co.OHG
Georg Brauchle-Ring 23-25, D-80992 München
Tel +49(0)89-2442-****
my.name@o2.com

o2 (Germany) GmbH & Co. OHG • Georg-Brauchle-Ring 23-25 • 80992 München • Deutschland • www.o2.com/de

Ust.-Id.-Nr. DE 811 889 638. Amtsgericht München HRA 70343. Gesellschafter: o2 (Germany) Management GmbH. Amtsgericht München HRB 109061 und
o2 (Germany) Verwaltungs GmbH. Amtsgericht München HRB 121389, beide ebenda.
Geschäftsführer beider Gesellschafter: Dr. h.c. Rudolf Gröger, Vorsitzender. Dietrich Beese. André Krause. Prof. Dr. Alexander Röder. Karl-Wilhelm Rohrsen. Lutz Schüler.

I also have a UK Ltd company and am also always in a repayment situation. If you write to the C&E and request it they will allow you to fill VAT returns on a monthly basis. They also pay directly into my UK Bank Account and I do it on line at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ . If you telephone them they are helpful. Good luck!

We complete on a quarterly basis and are not a UK company. We don't have a UK account (and don't want one - been there and got the tee-shirt on that. Never again). The UK Taxman can't comprehend this. Much though the folks on the end of the centralised line try to be helpful, they are not geared up to non-domiciled tax submissions and pass you from ignorant pillar to stupid post and lack any element of flexibility.

Yep, UstID and Bankverbindung are optional, but sometimes helpful.

In what way would these be helpful on an email?

Xenopobobes use EU consumer protection law as an excuse to slag off the "Herrmans" on Toytown shocker!