ANALYSIS · 12 September 2025
Section 2 LkSG: Cross-Border Risk in Supply Chains Connected to Türkiye
Section 2 LkSG does not automatically attribute a violation abroad to a German company. It defines the protected legal interests, the supply chain and the company’s own business area, thereby establishing the cross-border scope of the statutory due-diligence duties.
A scope provision preceding liability
Section 2 is the conceptual centre of the LkSG. It creates neither an independent damages claim nor criminal liability. Instead, it determines which human-rights and environmental obligations, risks and corporate relationships fall within the due-diligence duties in sections 3–10. It therefore marks the starting point, not the outcome, of the responsibility analysis. The provision is particularly relevant where subsidiaries or suppliers operating in Türkiye are integrated into a German company’s product or service chain. This connection does not mean that a violation occurring in Türkiye is automatically attributed to the German company; rather, it requires the scope of that company’s risk analysis and due-diligence duties to be determined.
Protected interests and the limits of environmental risk
Section 2(1) refers to the legal interests protected by the international conventions listed in the Act’s annex. According to the legislative reasons, those conventions form the relevant reference framework for sections 3–10; the catalogue is not unlimited. Consequently, not every breach of foreign environmental law is automatically an environmental risk under the LkSG. Where air, water or soil pollution threatens health, access to safe drinking water or people’s natural basis of life, it may also constitute a human-rights risk under section 2(2).
The geographical reach of the supply chain
Section 2(5) covers all domestic and foreign steps necessary to manufacture a product or provide a service. The legislative reasons explain that the chain begins with raw-material extraction and ends with delivery to the final customer. Necessary transport and intermediate storage may be included alongside procurement, production and distribution. The cross-border connection therefore depends not on where the violation occurs but on its functional place in the German company’s product or service chain. A production, procurement, transport or intermediate-storage activity in Türkiye may therefore form part of the supply chain under the LkSG insofar as it is necessary to manufacture the German company’s product or provide its service.
Three levels of activity
The Act distinguishes the company’s own business area, direct suppliers and indirect suppliers. Where the parent exercises determining influence, affiliated companies may form part of the parent’s own business area. Direct suppliers are identified through contract; indirect suppliers are captured, despite the absence of a direct contract, through their necessary contribution to the product or service. The required intensity of analysis, prevention and remedial action varies with the level at which the risk arises.
Legislative reasons: information and leverage
The legislative reasons connect due diligence with the company’s ability to obtain information and exercise influence. They also describe section 3 as an obligation of effort, not a guarantee of success. Companies need not guarantee a violation-free global supply chain. They must, however, demonstrate that the procedures required by sections 4–10 have been established and applied in a manner appropriate to their size, proximity to the risk, severity of the harm and available leverage.
Civil liability requires a separate legal basis
Under section 3(3), breach of the LkSG does not by itself create new civil liability. A claimant cannot therefore rely on section 2 alone. Where the German parent’s own decision, organisational fault or wrongful omission contributed to the harm, general tort and conflict-of-laws rules must be examined separately. Outside the LkSG, the Hamm Higher Regional Court’s Lliuya v RWE judgment shows that geographical distance and multiple contributors do not categorically exclude cross-border civil responsibility.
Conclusion
Section 2 is not an automatic attribution rule. Its importance lies in legally defining the cross-border risk perimeter. Responsibility requires the combined assessment of a protected risk, corporate connection, knowledge, leverage and breach of a concrete due-diligence duty. Section 2 opens the door but does not alone provide the final basis of liability.