The reporting obligations regarding disclosures on intangible resources have been adjusted (Sections 289 (3a), 315 (3a) HGB-E).

• The subject matter and scope of the audit of the sustainability report has been adjusted in Section 324c HGB‑E: the audit of the sustainability report must now cover whether the management report has been “expanded” in accordance with Sections 289b to 289e (draft bill: also “prepared” in accordance with Section 289g). The audit now includes whether the requirements of Section 289g and the requirements of Article 8 of the Taxonomy Regulation have been “complied with”.
• The auditor is still envisaged as the auditor of the sustainability report (Section 324e HGB‑E). However, the explanatory memorandum to the bill states that the Federal Government will examine whether other independent providers of assurance services, such as environmental verifiers in particular, can also be provided for as sustainability report auditors in a subsequent amendment to the law, making use of the Member State option under Article 34 (4) of the Accounting Directive (p. 144 f.).
• The obligation to prepare a separate audit report provided for in the draft bill has been dropped (section 324h HGB‑E).
• In line with the suggestion of the WPK, Section 2 WPO‑E expressly states that auditors have the professional task of carrying out business audits, in particular audits of the annual financial statements of commercial enterprises, auditing sustainability reports and issuing audit opinions or audit reports on the performance and results of such audits.

This leads to a significant change in the job description, as the economic and (tax) law connection is dissolved and extended to include technical and social aspects of sustainability auditing.

• In accordance with the suggestion of the WPK, auditing firms should now be registered as auditors for sustainability reports upon request and entered in the professional register if at least one of the auditors working on behalf of the firm is registered as an auditor for sustainability reports (Section 13d (2) WPO‑E).
• In the explanatory memorandum to Section 13d (3) WPO‑E (page 179), there are requirements for the scope of further training for grandfathers: Further training should be suitable and sufficient to impart the necessary knowledge about sustainability reports and their auditing if it adequately covers all the content listed in Section 24b WiPrPrPrüfV‑E and lasts at least 40 hours. The general obligation to undergo ongoing further training remains unaffected by this obligation.

As before, the law itself does not contain any specifications regarding the amount of time required.

New in this context are the transitional provisions in section 140 WPO‑E in relation to section 13d (3) WPO‑E; according to this, all persons who are appointed as auditors by January 1, 2026 are subject to the grandfather regulation. They can initially (1 year after the law comes into force) be registered without further training as a registration requirement, but must then provide evidence of further training 18 months after the law comes into force.

• Only professionals who are registered as auditors of sustainability reports in accordance with section 38 no. 1 letter g WPO‑E (section 43 (6) WPO‑E) may be selected as sustainability audit partners responsible for carrying out the audit of a sustainability report.
• In section 8 (2) no. 7 WiPrPrüfV‑E, following the WPK's request, it was added that the sustainability expert on the task committee can now also be a member of the profession; in addition, sentence 2 was added, according to which the sustainability expert only participates in determining the audit tasks for the additional audit for the auditor of sustainability reports in accordance with section 24b WiPrPrüfV‑E.
• In Section 24b (3) WiPrPrPrüfV‑E, it has been added that anyone who has received an overall grade of at least 4.00 in the written examination of the additional examination has passed this examination and does not have to take an oral examination.
• The liability-related suggestions and the other suggestions regarding the WP exam in the WPK's statement on the draft bill dated April 19, 2024 were not taken up.