Ulrich Seibert

Ulrich Seibert (August 8, 1954) is a German jurisprudent, head of the division for German company law and corporate governance at the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection in Berlin, as well as an honorary professor for economic law at the faculty of law of the Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf.

Career

Ulrich Seibert is the son of Edith Seibert, an informal painter, and Claus Seibert, judge at the Federal Court of Justice of Germany in Karlsruhe. He studied law in Tübingen, Göttingen and Freiburg. He completed his first state examination in law in 1979. In 1982, he graduated at the University of Hamburg and received the title J. D. after having written his doctoral thesis “Erfüllung durch finale Leistungsbewirkung”. After study periods in Florence (Professor Luigi Lombardi Vallauri, filosofia del diritto presso l’Universita degli Studi di Firenze) and Paris, and completing the second state examination in law, Seibert became a judge at the labour court and then at the local court in Hamburg. In 1986, he moved to the Federal Ministry of Justice in Bonn, where he became head of the division for cabinet and parliamentary affairs under Minister Klaus Kinkel in 1990. He has been head of the division for company law and corporate governance since 1992 and was appointed Ministerialrat in 1997.

In 2001, Seibert was awarded the title “honorary professor” by the law faculty of the Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf. He is one of the directors of the Center for Business and Corporate Law (Institut für Unternehmensrecht) at the Heinrich-Heine University and is a member of the Advisory Council of the Center for Corporate Governance at the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management (Handelshochschule Leipzig).

Since the early nineties, Ulrich Seibert has drafted and prepared most laws within the field of company law and corporate governance and has represented Germany also at EU, OECD and G20 level. He was, for instance, responsible for drafting the 1994 law on “kleine Aktiengesellschaften” (closed limited companies on shares), the law concerning the Corporate Sector Supervision and Transparency Act (Gesetz zur Kontrolle und Transparenz im Unternehmensbereich – KonTraG, 1998), which was the first important corporate governance reform in Germany, the law on no-par value shares (Stückaktiengesetz – StückAG, 1998), the law on registered shares and the facilitating of the exercise of voting rights (Gesetz zur Namensaktie und zur Erleichterung der Stimmrechtsausübung – NaStraG, 2001), and the Act on Corporate Integrity and Modernization of the Law to Challenge Decisions by the Shareholders' Meeting (Gesetz zur Unternehmensintegrität und Modernisierung des Anfechtungsrechts – UMAG, 2004).

During the 16th legislative period in Germany, Seibert prepared numerous legislative proposals, such as the Act on Electronic Commercial Registers, Registers of Cooperatives and Business Registers (Gesetz über das Elektronische Handels- und Genossenschaftsregister sowie das Unternehmensregister – EHUG) and the Act to Modernize the Law Governing Private Limited Companies and to Combat Abuses (Gesetz zur Modernisierung des GmbH-Rechts und zur Bekämpfung von Missbräuchen – MoMiG, 2008) – which constituted the first major GmbH reform since the creation of this law in the late 19th century. In addition, he also drafted the politically controversial amendment of the Volkswagen Law, the Act Implementing the Shareholder Rights Directive (Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Aktionärsrechterichtlinie – ARUG), and the Act on Appropriate Executive Board Renumeration (Gesetz zur Angemessenheit der Vorstandsvergütung – VorstAG). During the financial crisis of 2007-2008, he was charged with the corporation law aspects of the stabilization measures, including the Financial Market Stabilization Act (Finanzmarktstabilisierungsgesetz – FMStG, 2008). Following this, he worked on the legal regulation of professional partnerships with limited liability (Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mit beschränkter Berufshaftung – PartGmbB

In the course of the 18th legislative period, Seibert mainly drew up the politically acclaimed draft on the introduction of a female quota in supervisory boards in the private sector (FüPo law in force since 1 May 2015). In addition to this, he also worked on the 2014 reform of stock company law, the proposal for an EU directive to amend the Shareholder Rights Directive, the EU proposal to harmonize the single-person company or “societas unius personae” (SUP), and the draft directive of the EU to encourage and support women in executive positions.

Furthermore, Seibert has attended the government commission “Corporate Governance - Unternehmensführung - Unternehmenskontrolle - Modernisierung des Aktienrechts” for the Ministry and currently acts as the Ministry’s ‘liaison manager’ to the government commission “Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex” (German CG Code). He also coined the term “legal designer”, which refers to a ministry official who designs draft laws.

Ulrich Seibert is the author and publisher of several books and has written around 200 essays in the field of commercial law and corporate governance. He is an art collector and significant investor. He is married and has four children.

Publications

References

Joachim Jahn: Ein Handwerksmeister in der Gesetzesschmiede: Ulrich Seibert führt die Feder bei der „Aktienrechtsreform in Permanenz“. In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 10. Juli 2009, S. 18. (A master craftsman in the law smithy: Ulrich Seibert leads the quill at the 'company law reform in perpetuity')

Web Links

Literature by and about Ulrich Seibert in the German National Library catalogue

Curriculum Vitae, list of publications and photo on the website of the institute of corporote law of the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf

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