Preparation of annual financial statements and management report

(1) The legal representatives of the undertaking must prepare the annual financial statements (section 242 of the Commercial Code) for the past financial year within the first three months of the financial year. Section 264(1a) and sections 265, 266, 268 to 275 and 277 of the Commercial Code apply mutatis mutandis to the content and structure of the annual financial statements and to their individual items. Other provisions arising from the legal form or line of business remain unaffected.
(2) The legal representatives of an undertaking not conducted in the legal form of a commercial partnership or a sole trader must supplement the annual financial statements with notes forming a single unit with the balance sheet and the profit and loss account, and must prepare a management report. Sections 284, 285 numbers 1 to 4, 7 to 13, 15a, 17 to 34, and section 286 of the Commercial Code apply mutatis mutandis to the notes, and section 289 of the Commercial Code applies mutatis mutandis to the management report.
(2a) Undertakings that are capital-market-oriented by mutatis mutandis application of section 264d of the Commercial Code must supplement their annual financial statements with notes under subsection (2) and prepare a management report under subsection (2) sentence 2. Section 264(1) sentence 2 of the Commercial Code applies mutatis mutandis.
(3) Section 330 of the Commercial Code, on the issuing of statutory ordinances, also applies to undertakings to which this Part applies under section 3(1).
(4) Where the undertaking is that of a commercial partnership or a sole trader, the sole trader's or the partners' other assets (private assets) must not be included in the balance sheet, and expenses and income attributable to private assets must not be included in the profit and loss account.
(5) Commercial partnerships and sole traders may draw up the profit and loss account in accordance with the provisions applicable to their undertaking. Where a structure under section 275 of the Commercial Code is used, taxes that commercial partnerships and sole traders must pay as taxpayer may be shown under other expenses. Where the profit and loss account is not to be disclosed under section 9, the following information must additionally be given in an annex to the balance sheet:
1. revenue within the meaning of section 277(1) of the Commercial Code,
2. income from participations,
3. wages, salaries, social security contributions, and expenses for retirement benefits and support,
4. valuation and depreciation methods, including significant changes,
5. the average number of employees employed in the twelve months preceding the balance sheet date.
(6) Undertakings within the meaning of section 3(1) are exempt from the requirements of this Act where they are included in the consolidated financial statements of a parent undertaking within the meaning of section 11 of this Act or of section 290 of the Commercial Code, and otherwise satisfy the correspondingly applicable requirements of section 264(3) of the Commercial Code.