Risk Mitigation

When it comes to managing risk effectively, there is almost always a legal side to it.

The range of assets that can be exposed to risk is wide, but the following ones are particularly relevant:

• Financial assets
• Property rights and other absolute rights in real estate, in goods and in intellectual property as well as in shares of companies
• entrepreneurial units (Unternehmensgesamtheiten)
• Claims
• Permits by government authorities
• Trade secrets
• Know-how and mere business opportunities
• Reputation and good will

Risks can arise from a variety of circumstances, including:  

• liability for willful misconduct or negligence
• (in certain cases) liability independent of one’s own conduct
• criminal behaviour of third parties: industrial espionage, fraud and theft, product piracy
• changes in law
• incorrect and incomplete contracts and insufficient (“thin”) documentation and evidence relating to the relevant business matters, in particular on the course of negotiations and the flow of information thus giving rise to undesired court decisions
• deadlines and their expiry
• counterparty performance and solvency risk, change of control