Departments
The Institute for Applied Business Law was founded at the initiative of Prof. Dr. Daniel Graewe in 2016 at the NORDAKADEMIE University of Applied Sciences on the occasion of the introduction of the new Master's degree course in "Business Law (LL.M.)".
Initially, the institute did not yet have a diversified internal structure and concentrated on application-oriented research in the core areas of teaching, in particular private business law, i.e. in addition to general civil law, in particular commercial, labour and company law. Soon the law of reorganisation and restructuring was added, as well as the legal particularities of start ups and venture capital, and later also the law of economic crimes. In 2018 the focus was then shifted to corporate law.
On January 1, 2020, the institute merged with its sister institute for compliance in medium-sized businesses (IfCiM) and reorganized itself into departments. The former institute's focus on corporate law was concentrated in one department and the former IfCiM was organized in another department for compliance. Thanks to generous third-party funding, the third department for ESG was added in 2020. Each of the departments is equally active in research and teaching.
I. Department: Corporate Law
The "oldest" department of the Institute conducts research in the entire range of the cross-sectional field of corporate law. This includes, in particular, commercial and corporate law, the employment law of executives and board members, corporate governance, mergers & acquisitions, restructuring and insolvency law, as well as legal issues related to new legal and technical developments in these areas. The aim is to provide high-quality teaching and research with a high degree of practical relevance. The department is academically headed by Prof. Dr. Daniel Graewe.
II. Department: Compliance
The task of the Compliance department is to conduct research in the area of compliance with legal provisions and internal guidelines in companies and to work towards ensuring that these are observed - if necessary, throughout the Group. In this field, management systems and other structures have so far been given little legal or jurisdictional specification, so that applied research plays a particularly important role in both science and practice.
III. Department: Environment, Social & Governance
The Institute's youngest department focuses on ESG-topics relevant to the economy in Germany and Europe. To this end, it maintains a close exchange with companies, associations, lobbyists and politicians in order to monitor and critically evaluate important issues and their legal policy implementation or further development as well as to advise on its practical implementation within companies. This includes, on the one hand, the analysis of existing ESG law regulations in order to be able to propose adjustments where necessary. On the other hand, it also includes taking up current ESG discussions and evaluating them from the perspective of the business community. The department is academically headed by Prof. Dr. Daniel Graewe.
Activities
More information on the activities of the individual departments can be found in the research section.