The Bundesverband Crowdfunding eV (German Crowdfunding Association) has endorsed the draft bill for the Future Financing Act presented by the German Government.
Germany, the largest economy in Europe, has yet to have a single securities crowdfunding platform approved under new EU rules. ECSPR, or European Crowdfunding Service Provider Regulation, requires that a platform be approved by the Member states’ relevant authority. Each country must create an approval process for a platform, and if qualified, the platform may issue securities sold to anyone in the EU. Germany has been rather slow to creat rules that enable investment crowdfunding to operate and flourish.
A significant hurdle has been a sticking point for the German crowdfunding industry. In April, the German Crowdfunding Association stated:
“These prohibitive liability rules led to considerable legal uncertainty for potential platforms and issuers – as a result, no platform in Germany has yet obtained the ECSP license, and likewise, the number of platforms that have applied for an ECSP license is very small.”
The changes to liability have now been deemed acceptable by the German crowdfunding sector. Issuers are will now only liable in cases of gross negligence, and the rules no longer hold a natural person personally liable.
The Association recently stated:
“The Bundesverband Crowdfunding expressly supports the adjustment of the liability conditions for issuers on crowdfunding platforms to the liability regime for securities and investments.
We also welcome a number of other proposals in the Future Financing Act that are suitable for making the capital market in Germany more usable for digital investment methods.”
The law will be debated in Parliament in the coming weeks. Bundesverband Crowdfunding will be holding a webinar on the topic next week (Tuesday, June 20, 2023).
The Bundesverband Crowdfunding states that it will work to ensure that the draft bill is passed by the cabinet as it stands and likewise adopted by the Bundestag.
