Overview
- Lawmakers held a first reading on January 16 for a government bill to revise the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, with the package now moving to committee scrutiny.
- The draft keeps core due‑diligence duties in place but removes the reporting obligation and restricts penalties to severe breaches.
- An AfD motion seeks to repeal the law entirely, while a Die Linke motion calls for preserving and strengthening it.
- The government frames the revisions as interim measures ahead of replacing the national law with legislation transposing the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive by 2027.
- Business groups criticized the proposal as insufficient relief and urged Germany to apply EU thresholds that would cover only companies with more than 5,000 employees and €1.5 billion in global revenue.