100 years per honor: a haven of decency for an trustworthy financial system | EUROtoday

When the Pro Honore affiliation was based in Hamburg in April 1925, chaos capitalism, the precise of the stronger, prevailed in Germany. Bribery, extortion and fraud have been after all a part of the instruments of many firms, and bribes have been deducted from the tax. After the devastating First World War, the customs have been additionally brutalized within the financial system, everybody fought for themselves.

Men from the Hamburg elite, from enterprise and politics, acknowledged the self -destructive potential of this growth. Not solely did it hurt the picture of the German and Hamburg financial system, for instance, overseas, but additionally disintegrated the required, common -based relationship between firms. The founders of Pro Honore included the banker and the then Chamber of Commerce President Hermann Münchmeyer, the primary mayor of the Hanseatic metropolis, Carl Friedrich Petersen and the Chancellor Ad Wilhelm Cuno.

With the affiliation, they put one thing like an early discussion board for a rule and ethical work on their toes, which is now referred to as compliance (loyalty to the principles). “The fight against the bribes and bribes of the time was the first big project of Pro Honore,” mentioned right this moment’s membership chairman and monetary entrepreneur Nikolaus from the ceilings on Wednesday on the eleventh Hanseatic compliance day within the Chamber of Commerce.

The work of Pro Honore and the contents of the affiliation are as topical within the current and as essential because it was 100 years in the past. Nowadays, financial crime is organized at a professionally larger degree than on the time-from the CUM-Ex Tax scandal to the looting of firms by the organized crime. And the world’s strongest destroyer of a dependable, clear and cooperative financial system is presently sitting as a boss within the White House in Washington.

Hamburg’s finance senator Andreas Dressel (SPD) was represented by his State Councilor Bettina Lentz for a greeting to Pro Honore. Lentz learn a mud -dry textual content from the sheet in entrance of the roughly 40 members within the Chamber of Commerce and emphasised that the general public firms within the Hanseatic metropolis had “a role model function” with a view to good company administration, they went “with a good example”.

How little the Hanseatic City of Hamburg presently does justice to this declare exhibits two examples. At the municipal firm Hamburg Wasser, the 2 managing directors-Gesine Strohmeyer and Ingo Hannemann-had an influence wrestle for months and in addition fed suspicion of mismanagement, and the supervisory board began on their as a substitute of an interim administration on April 1st.

The Hamburg power works in flip not too long ago introduced that the worth for the acquisition of district heating will increase by 30 p.c in a single fell swoop. The purpose for this – excessive investments in a local weather -friendly power provide – has been recognized within the firm for years. Obviously, the red-green Senate wished to maintain the foreseeable worth will increase out of the residents’ election marketing campaign, and was elected in Hamburg on March 2. So far, the outgoing environmental and power agent Jens Kerstan (Greens) has been liable for supervision for each Hamburg water and the Hamburg power works. In current years, the Hamburg Energiewerke had related quite a few new clients – together with in previous buildings – to the district heating community.

The vary of duties from Pro Honore stays broad, from clear and good company administration to the protection towards financial crime. After the primary and after the Second World War, Pro Honore constructed the “Hanseatic Protection Association for Sales Finance and Credit Protection” (Schufa) in Hamburg, the origin of which was in Berlin.

In 2003, the affiliation, along with the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and the meeting of an honorable service provider in Hamburg, arrange a “Hamburg trust point to protect against crime in business”. The time period “whistleblowing” was nonetheless largely unknown in Germany. At the belief space, informants can present details about financial crime and crime in firms anonymously, protected and shielded by skilled attorneys. “The witness and whistle is under enormous mental pressure not to be able to reveal himself safely,” mentioned von der Ceiling. However, with out indications of insiders, the investigative authorities might by no means make clear many financial crimes.

Two examples present how updated: The Hamburg copper producer Aurubis had been cheated and robbed by the organized crime for years – the skilled criminals labored with workers and insiders from Aurubis. Also on insiders base drug cartels, that are primarily launched to cocaine from South America through the port terminals of the HHLA and from Eurogate to Germany and Europe. There have been already first prison proceedings in each complexes, the Aurubis crimes and the drug smuggling within the port of Hamburg.

It is an enormously advanced activity to discover a wise steadiness between entrepreneurial freedom and the required social management of financial motion. The German “Lief chain law” exhibits this, which the corporate perceives as a bureaucratic nightmare. The presumed future authorities coalition of the Union and SPD desires to regulate the legislation of the results of the reform is thus far unclear on the premise of the coalition settlement that has not but been determined. Many firms need them to should make transparency in relation to their subsequent suppliers, however to not all suppliers. “We do not need more rules, we mainly need clear rules,” mentioned enterprise lawyer Malte Passarge, who has been working as managing director of Pro Honore since 2012.

From Pro Honore’s standpoint, clear, dependable, truthful motion between firms finally – past ethics – can be pure self -interest. “Companies that practice ethical and decent behavior,” mentioned von der Keden, “are more effective, more resistant and in the long term profitable.”

Olaf Preuss is the enterprise reporter of the world and world on Sunday for Hamburg and Northern Germany.