Klaus-Heiner backrest

Klaus-Heiner Lehne, European Court of Auditors 2014

Candidate poster for the 1987 federal election

Klaus-Heiner Lehne (* 28. October 1957 in Dusseldorf ) was CDU - member of the European Parliament . He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Group of the European People's Party and chaired the Legal Affairs Committee between the 2009 European elections and February 2014 . He has been a member of the European Court of Auditors since March 2014 and its President since September 2016.

Life

After graduating from high school, Lehne studied law from 1976 to 1986 at the universities of Düsseldorf , Freiburg im Breisgau , Cologne and Bonn . He then worked as a lawyer in Düsseldorf until 2014. From 1984 to 1992 he was a council member in Düsseldorf and then a member of the German Bundestag until 1994 , where he replaced the deceased MP Hubert Doppmeier . He was a full member of the Transport Committee and the Legal Committee. He then became a member of the European Parliament in the 1994 European elections , where he was chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee between 2009 and 2014. His brother Olaf Lehne has been a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia since 2005 .

Political activity in the European Parliament

Corporate law

Lehne was rapporteur for the European Parliament for the following EU legislative procedures in company law:

• Takeover Policy
• Merger Directive
• Accounting guidelines
• Shareholder Rights Directive
• European Private Company Statute

Contract law

As a rapporteur on European contract law, Lehne supported the academic preparatory work on the so-called common frame of reference. In a resolution from December 2007, the European Parliament demanded that the academic draft of a common frame of reference form the basis for further steps towards European contract law. In the long term, the European Parliament called for a so-called optional instrument: for cross-border transactions, the contracting parties can alternatively fall back on the rules of European contract law. The European Parliament did not want to replace national codifications such as the German Civil Code (BGB) . This position is reflected in the first reading of the European Parliament on the regulation on a European sales law.

Class actions

Lehne was also a rapporteur on so-called class actions . In his report, he called for cartel victims to be entitled to compensation. However, there should be no class actions based on the US model in Europe.

software

Lehne has been criticized in the past for his work against software patents . Contrary to his actual position in the debate about the directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, he was accused of being in favor of patenting software. Lehne's position against the patentability of software was evident both in his public appearances and in his support for the report of the then Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.

Memberships

Lehne was a member of the Europa-Union parliamentary group European Parliament .

Conflicts of Interest

Lehne's previous civil profession as a lawyer has been the subject of repeated allegations of alleged conflicts of interest. However, none of the allegations could be substantiated.

Political party

Klaus-Heiner Lehne was chairman of the CDU district association in Düsseldorf from 2003 to January 2014 . He was succeeded by Thomas Jarzombek after Klaus-Heiner Lehne had been nominated as a German member for the European Court of Auditors .

European Court of Auditors

Klaus-Heiner Lehne has been working at the European Court of Auditors since March 2014. Here he was a member of Chamber III, which is responsible for external policy areas. Klaus-Heiner Lehne was rapporteur on the special reports on the promotion of renewable energies in East Africa, the ACP investment facility and EU funding for the fight against torture and the abolition of the death penalty.

On September 13, 2016, he was elected President of the Court of Auditors. On September 12, 2019, he was re-elected as President of the Court of Auditors for three years.

Honors

• Federal Cross of Merit (Federal Republic of Germany)
• Officers Cross of the Order of Merit (Polish Republic)
• Decoration of Honor of the German Bar Association (2005)
• Honorary Chairman of the CDU Düsseldorf
• Doctor Honoris Causa of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (2019)

Web links

• Literature by and about Klaus-Heiner Lehne in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage of the Member of Parliament Klaus-Heiner Lehne
• Entry on Klaus-Heiner Lehne in the Members' database of the European Parliament
• Software patents: Conservative People's Party coordinator in the line of fire
• Conflict of interest due to secondary employment: Chairman of the EU legal committee earns at least 120,000 euros in a large law firm

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1]
2. ↑ Directive 2004/25 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 21, 2004 regarding takeover bids (Takeover Directive) . In: Official Journal of the European Union .
3. ↑ Directive 2005/56 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 26, 2005 on the merger of corporations from different member states . In: Official Journal of the European Union.
4. ↑ Directive 2006/46 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 14, 2006 amending Council Directives 78/660 / EEC on the annual financial statements of certain legal forms of companies, 83/349 / EEC on consolidated financial statements, 86/635 / EEC on the annual accounts and consolidated accounts of banks and other financial institutions and 91/674 / EEC on the annual accounts and consolidated accounts of insurance companies . In: Official Journal of the European Union.
5. ↑ Directive 2007/36 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of July 11, 2007 on the exercise of certain rights by shareholders in listed companies . In: Official Journal of the European Union.
6. ↑ Legislative resolution of the European Parliament of 10 March 2009 on the proposal for a Council regulation on the statute for a European private company
7. ↑ Resolution of the European Parliament of December 12, 2007 on European contract law
8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from February 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Resolution of the European Parliament of March 26, 2009 on the White Paper: Actions for Damages Due to Violation of EC Competition Law
10. ↑ Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (COM (2002) 92 final - 2002/0047 (COD))
11. ^ Minutes of the plenary debate on July 5, 2005
12. ↑ See representation at heise-online
13. ^ Minutes of the plenary debate on July 5, 2005
14. ↑ Press release (from June 21, 2005)
15. ^ Report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions of June 18, 2003, rapporteur Arlene McCarthy
16. ↑ Blog entry on parliamentwatch.de ( Memento from May 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
17. ↑ Parliament supports the appointment of Klaus-Heiner Lehne to the EU Court of Auditors. Press release. European Parliament, February 4, 2014.
18. ↑ http://www.eca.europa.eu/de/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=34611
19. ↑ http://www.eca.europa.eu/de/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=34157
20. ↑ http://www.eca.europa.eu/de/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=32568
21. ↑ structure | EUROPEAN COURT OF AUDITORS. In: www.eca.europa.eu. Retrieved December 21, 2016 . 
22. ^ Klaus-Heiner Lehne re-elected President of the European Court of Auditors. Retrieved November 8, 2019 .