Answers to important
questions
1. What information obligations does the employer have to
inform its workforce?
As with other highly infectious diseases,
employers have a duty to inform their staff about the coronavirus
as part of their general duty of care and consideration (Sec. 241,
618 German Civil Code [BGB]). The extent of this duty to inform
depends, among other things, on whether a member of staff is
suspected of having caught the virus, whether or not this has been
confirmed.
a. No suspected cases in the business
In view of the high rate of infection and the
extreme measures that are required even in merely suspected cases,
it can be assumed that employers have a heightened interest in and
therefore the obligation to inform their staff even if there is as
yet no definitive suspected case of coronavirus infection among
them. The information employers should provide is a description of
the symptoms (in particular information found on the websites
