Research profile

The Law Professorship for Business and Tax Law, which was established in the Faculty of Mathematics and Economics in July 2012, was spun off into the newly founded Institute for Business and Tax Law and the Digitalization of Law on 1 July 2025. This institutional realignment underlines the growing importance of digitalisation in law and creates optimal conditions for interdisciplinary research at the interface of law and technology.

Research focus

The research focus is on national and international corporate, Finances and tax law with a particular focus on the digitalisation of law. Research is divided into three systematically interlinked pillars:

Business law deals with fundamental questions of civil, corporate, accounting and capital market law as well as auditing. It also researches structural and individual issues of association and foundation law, new legal form options for Sustainable Management, ESG duties of care and legal issues relating to the use of artificial intelligence systems and blockchain technologies in corporate law.

Tax law deals with fundamental questions of the tax law system in German, European and international tax law. Current research focuses in particular on accounting and corporate tax law, capital income and investment taxation, the law of double taxation treaties, inheritance and gift tax law as well as tax law issues relating to the use of AI systems, blockchain technologies and new digital business models.

Digitalisation of Law researches possibilities for the digitalisation of legislation and ways to develop digitally compatible law, methods of computer-assisted legal research and legal advice as well as innovative training content and methods in the field of legal tech and data science & law.

Interdisciplinary networking and methodological approach

The Institute benefits from unique links within the Faculty, in particular to the fields of Business Analytics (Business Informatics), Auditing, Insurance Science, Corporate Finance, Mathematics and Management, Statistics and Behavioural Economics. Being embedded in an engineering and Natural Sciences orientated University and the innovative economic region of Ulm open up particular potential for the application of quantitative methods in law.

Central cross-cutting topics include the methods and limits of teleological interpretation and economic viability in private, accounting and tax law, the interaction of capital market and tax law, international corporate and tax law and the treatment of cross-border capital income. In interdisciplinary networks, the Institute is dedicated to the application of distributed ledger technologies and legal tech applications.

Scientific standards and social relevance

The research combines the demand for internationally visible scientific contributions with practice-relevant impulses for the further development of the law. In corporate and tax law, the neutrality function of scientific research takes centre stage. The aim is to develop fair, practicable and competitive proposals for legal and tax policy, case law and consulting and administrative practice.

The Institute's particular strength lies in the systematic combination of traditional legal methods with innovative approaches to digitalisation. This combination makes it possible both to research established legal structures and to develop forward-looking solutions for the challenges of digital transformation.