News

Successful COST application: EU funds international Steward Ownership Network (STONE)

On 19 May 2026, decisions were made on the applications for the establishment of EU-funded COST networks.

The Steward Ownership Network (STONE) application was one of 80 successful (success rate 7%). The list of approved COST Actions has been published by COST (here).

The application is the result of close collaboration between four people:

• Prof Dr Carolina Cunha, Coimbra, Portugal
• Prof Dr Alessio Bartolacelli, Modena, Italy
• Prof. Dr Florian Möslein, University of Vienna, Austria
• Prof. Dr Anne Sanders, University of Bielefeld

The application brings together 129 people from 24 countries (20 from Europe, 4 from outside), 59 people are younger than 40.

The applicants come from academia, companies, non-profits and international organisations. The disciplines represented include law, economics and business administration, sociology, religion and political science.

Bielefeld University is represented in the application with a strong presence from law and sociology:

• Prof. Dr Anne Sanders Rewi
• Prof. Dr Simon Kempny Rewi
• Dr. Mareike ReimannSociology

Doctoral candidates in the Faculty of Law:

• Nina Berenbrinker
• Tim Bühring
• Elisabeth Pichler
• Ben Reinold
   

Webinar Recording Now Available: Katharina Pistor in Conversation with Anne Sanders on Democracy, Law, and Capitalism

In this recorded webinar, Katharina Pistor (Columbia University) discusses the central arguments of her book ''The Law of Capitalism and How to Transform It.'' Together with Verena Madner (WU Vienna) and Prof. Dr. Anne Sanders, M.Jur., she discusses the global erosion of democratic institutions, possible paths toward transforming legal and economic structures, and the potential for incremental social change.

The event was organized on April 13, 2026, by the Institute for Law and Governance and is part of the preparatory series for the conference “Democracy Under Pressure: Lessons From Past Authoritarian Crises (May 24–26, 2027, in Vienna).

The full webinar is now available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtzR2qjrdDQ

 

Looking back: The Steward Ownership Conference 2025
On 9 October 2025, the third major conference of the global steward ownership community took place in Berlin - a place where entrepreneurs, investors, academics and interested parties came together to network, learn from each other and shape the future together.

Presentations, discussions and workshops highlighted a variety of perspectives on steward-ownership. Inspiring stories, new approaches to current social challenges and practical case studies from around the world made it clear just how lively and future-orientated this movement is.

At the centre of this is the vision of steward-ownership: an economy in which companies serve their purpose and people - not short-term profit. Ownership is understood as responsibility. Profits are a means to an end in order to create impact and secure long-term independence.

The conference impressively demonstrated that the community continues to grow.

Further information and the livestream of the main programme are available at https://so-events.org/ or on YouTube.

(Program-StONE-Workshop.pdf)

The Steward Ownership Network (StONe) held a pre-conference workshop on current research from law, management and other fields, hosted in collaboration with the SO:25 Steward-Ownership Conference. This event brought together academics, including early-career researchers, and anyone interested in the academic discourse on steward ownership.

Academic organisers: Prof. Dr. Alessio Bartolacelli (Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy), Prof. Dr. Anne Sanders (Bielefeld, Germany), Prof. Dr. Carolina Cunha (Coimbra, Portugal), Prof. Dr. Florian Möslein (Marburg, Germany).

 

 

From 22 to 24 May, an international conference was held at the Faculty of Law of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, attended by world-renowned academics and firms from around 20 countries, focusing on the application of steward ownership models to enterprises.

The conference was organised by Professors Alessio Bartolacelli (UniMORE), Carolina Cunha (University of Coimbra), Florian Möslein (University of Marburg) and Anne Sanders (University of Bielefeld). The seven sessions of the conference focused in particular on the key features of steward ownership, its implications for EU law, the differences between the organisational models currently used to implement steward ownership, the governance, stakeholders and the financial issues linked to steward ownership, also with regard to the legislative bills currently pending on this topic in Germany and the Netherlands, as well as some success stories from selected companies.

The slides and further information can be found here.

The CDU, CSU and SPD concluded their coalition agreement on 9 April 2025. Paragraphs 2815 et seq. state:

Company with tiedassets and reform of cooperative law
"We are modernising the law governing cooperatives and want to introduce a new, independent legal form called a "company with tied assets". The characteristics of this legal form are the unalterable asset commitment and participation according to membership logic without tax privileges or discrimination."(Source: Koalitionsvertrag2025)

These characteristics fit in well with the draft law for a separate legal form published in September 2024. Cf. below.
 

On 30 January 2025, Prof. Sanders was a guest at the 7th Zurich Foundation Day, a meeting place for the foundation community. Prof Sanders spoke about steward ownership and the ELI project on corporate foundations in a panel with Dr Ineke Koeler (NL) and Prof Rasmus Feldthusen (DK).

The recording of the presentation offers a well-founded introduction to the topic not only for students, but for all interested parties. Especially for those who are not yet familiar with the draft of the new legal form of a company with tied assets or "responsible ownership", it provides an understandable first overview.

The entire event was recorded. You can find more information here:

https://uzh.mediaspace.cast.switch.ch/playlist/dedicated/96154/0_9x077gx0/0_v2rr8qxy.

 

Prof. Sanders attended a symposium in the Bundestag on 10 September 2024 on a new legal form for companies with tied assets. There, she presented the draft law on the introduction of a company with tied assets together with other authors of the draft.
In addition, the Federal Ministry of Justice presented key points of its own draft for the introduction of an accumulating company. Many entrepreneurs, politicians and academics took part in the subsequent discussion on the introduction of a new legal form for the realisation of fiduciary entrepreneurship. Even before the symposium began, numerous entrepreneurs queued in front of the Bundestag to show that they were waiting for the new legal form.

The draft by Prof Sanders, Prof Dauner-Lieb, Prof Kempny, Prof Möslein, RA Noah Neitzel and Prof Teichmann has been published open access by Mohr Siebeck.

The present draft law
submits a proposal for implementing the concept of
fiduciary entrepreneurship or steward-ownership as a separate legal form, taking into account ancillary laws and tax law considerations.

The draft law is here available here

Gesellschaft mbH with tied assets

The working group led by Prof Dr Dr h.c. Barbara Dauner-Lieb, Prof. Dr Simon Kempny, LL.M. Prof. Dr Florian Möslein, LL.M., Prof. Dr Anne Sanders, M.Jur. and Prof. Dr Rüdiger Veil has presented a further developed draft bill following intensive discussion. The most important changes are the designation "Gesellschaft mbH mit gebundenem Vermögen" (limited liability company with tied assets) and improved regulations in the areas of corporate finance and governance to ensure asset retention. Download draft bill

On 9 July 2020, a video conference was held to present the report prepared by Prof. Dr Anne Sanders, M.Jur., Prof. Dr Dr Dr h.c. Barbara Dauner-Lieb, Dr Arne von Freeden, LL.M., Prof Dr Simon Kempny, LL.M., Prof Dr Florian Möslein, LL.M. and Prof Dr Rüdiger Veil and discussed with companies, economists and lawyers from business and practice.

You can find the conference programme - here -

Prof Dr Anne Sanders, M.Jur., with the support of her academic co-workers Gina R. Rolfes and Shkelqim Berisha, was responsible for the formulation and essential development of the corporate law regulations and explanations. The entire team assisted with proofreading.

Lecture for legal laypersons at the founding event on 25 November 2019

Steward ownership - this form of ownership, which was pioneered by the companies Zeiss and Schott around 130 years ago, is now of interest to many start-ups and SMEs.

On 25 November 2019 in Berlin, more than 30 companies jointly founded the "Responsible Ownership Foundation", giving this form of ownership a common voice for the first time. They discussed the experiences of companies with responsible ownership such as Alnatura, Globus or the search engine Ecosia, the experiences with responsible ownership in Denmark and the question of whether Germany needs a new legal form for responsible ownership.

You can access the press coverage here:

Handelsblatt FAZ Daily Mirror enorm-magazine