External AGG Complaints Office: Obligations, Structure, and Legally Compliant Appointment

§ 13(1) of the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) obliges every employer, regardless of company size, to establish a complaints office to which employees may turn if they feel they have been discriminated against under §§ 1 and 3 AGG. This obligation has applied since the AGG entered into force in 2006 and covers all private and public-law employers. Breaches of the organisational obligations under the AGG can give rise to claims for compensation and damages under §§ 15 and 21 AGG, and may establish management liability under § 130 of the Administrative Offences Act (OWiG).

This article describes the statutory requirements applicable to the AGG complaints office, explains the structural weaknesses of purely internal solutions, sets out the conditions for engaging an external body, and shows how the combination of digital documentation and appointed expertise meets the AGG's evidentiary obligations.

§ 13(1) AGG gives employees the right to lodge a complaint with the competent body of the employer if they feel they have been treated less favourably on grounds of one of the characteristics listed in § 1 AGG — race, ethnic origin, gender, religion, belief, disability, age or sexual identity. The employer is obliged to establish this complaints office and to make it known. The AGG contains no minimum company size requirement: the obligation applies from the first employee onwards.

After receiving a complaint, the complaints office must investigate the facts and inform the employee of the outcome. The Act contains no formalised deadline, but the general principle of equal treatment in employment law implies that feedback must be provided within a reasonable period — in practice, three to six weeks is the reference point.

§ 13(1) sentence 2 AGG is important: employees must not suffer any detriment as a result of using the complaints office. This excludes all forms of disadvantage following a complaint and places high demands on the confidentiality of the proceedings. The AGG complaints office is therefore both an employment law and an anti-discrimination law instrument.

Where a functioning complaints office is absent, the employer risks employees pursuing compensation claims under § 15 AGG through the courts — with the absence of the complaints office being treated as evidence of a systematic breach of the duty to protect.

The structural problem of every internal complaints office is the question of independence. The AGG does not prescribe formal independence of the complaints office in the same way that the HinSchG does for the reporting office. Nevertheless, the requirement of effective anti-discrimination protection implies that the person handling a complaint must be free from conflicts of interest.

In practice, this leads to typical situations in which an internal solution reaches its limits: if the complaints office is located within HR, a complaint about HR-internal matters cannot be handled neutrally. If it is located with the works council, the legal expertise to subsume facts under §§ 1 and 3 AGG is often lacking. If it is located with management, a conflict of interest arises in complaints against senior staff.

There is also the confidentiality problem: in small and medium-sized companies, the identity of the complainant is often identifiable despite confidentiality assurances, which in practice raises the threshold for submitting a complaint. An externally located complaints office with its own communication channel and a handler outside the company eliminates this problem structurally.

Complaints that are not resolved internally escalate to litigation before employment tribunals — with significant costs and reputational risk. Prevention through a functioning, independent complaints office is not only legally required but also economically prudent.

Operating an AGG complaints office touches on multiple areas of law simultaneously. The AGG itself governs the substantive anti-discrimination protection and the procedural law of the complaint. Alongside this, administrative offences law comes into play: § 130 OWiG sanctions breaches of supervisory duty with fines of up to one million euros if a company has not taken adequate measures to prevent discrimination violations.

The processing of complaints, including the personal data of complainants, accused persons and witnesses, is subject to the GDPR. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR (legal obligation) in conjunction with the AGG. Where special categories of personal data are processed — for example in complaints about religious or health-related discrimination — Art. 9 GDPR and the heightened requirements for technical and organisational protective measures apply.

A data processing agreement (DPA) under Art. 28 GDPR is required for cooperation with an external complaints office operator. It must also be ensured that the external operator is subject to their own duty of confidentiality and can demonstrate adequate data security standards. An ISO 27001:2022-certified provider meets these requirements structurally and reduces the principal's GDPR due diligence obligations to a minimum.

The AGG itself contains no provision on the external appointment of a complaints office. However, the general principles of employment law and the statutory scheme indicate that the employer may also operate the complaints office externally, provided the following conditions are met:

1. Expertise: The external operator must be sufficiently qualified to subsume facts under §§ 1 and 3 AGG. This requires knowledge of employment law and anti-discrimination law.
2. Confidentiality: The confidentiality of the complainant's identity must be ensured by contractual and technical measures.
3. Notification: Employees must be informed of the competent complaints office — name, contact details and procedure. When an external body is appointed, that external body must be made known within the company.
4. Accessibility: The complaints office must be accessible to all employees, including part-time workers, remote workers and trainees.
5. Documentation: All complaints, investigation steps and outcomes must be documented in a traceable manner, so that proof of proper handling can be furnished in litigation or audit proceedings.

When selecting a provider, it is also advisable to check whether they have sector-specific experience — for example in regulated industries with particularly sensitive employment structures such as healthcare or the public sector.

§ 12(5) AGG obliges the employer to make the content of the AGG — in particular the prohibition of discrimination and employees' right to complain — known by means of a notice or publication in the workplace. This obligation also extends to the complaints office: employees must know where to turn.

The following measures are recommended in practice: a permanent notice on the company intranet and on the physical notice board; a section in the staff handbook; and a reference in the employment contract or works rules. Where an external body is appointed, the contact details of the external operator should be communicated prominently.

The notification obligation extends also to trainees, agency workers and self-employed persons with employee-equivalent status. Companies subject to the Federal Equal Opportunities Act (BGleiG) under § 1 BGleiG have additional information obligations towards the equal opportunities officer.

Missing or incomplete notification can be treated in dispute proceedings as evidence that the employer does not take its AGG obligations seriously — thereby aggravating the duty to pay compensation under § 15 AGG. Audit-ready, documented, and § 12-compliant: notification is not a bureaucratic formality but an essential component of the duty to protect.

The AGG contains no explicit documentation obligation for complaints proceedings; however, the general rules on the burden of proof under § 22 AGG create a de facto documentation necessity. § 22 AGG provides for a shared burden of proof: if an employee establishes facts from which discrimination on grounds of a protected characteristic may be inferred, the employer bears the burden of proof that no violation occurred.

In practice, this means: anyone who has not documented the complaints procedure — no record of receipt, no factual account, no review protocol, no closing notification to the complainant — will be virtually without evidence in proceedings before the employment tribunal. Documentation is therefore not optional but the central instrument of liability management.

A complete procedural record must include at minimum: date and substance of the complaint; persons involved (preserving confidentiality of the complainant vis-à-vis third parties); investigation steps taken; measures adopted or declined; and closing notification to the complainant. This documentation must be retained in an audit-proof manner — tamper-proof, deletion-proof, and access-controlled.

The Data Protection Officer must be involved in the proceedings when special categories of personal data under Art. 9 GDPR are processed.

The AGG complaints office does not operate in isolation. It exists within an organisational context involving the works council, the company's management structures, and — in escalation scenarios — the employment tribunals.

The works council has its own right of complaint on behalf of employees under § 85 BetrVG. In practice, this means an employee may simultaneously lodge an AGG complaint and inform the works council. Both proceedings run in parallel. The complaints office is well advised to clarify the relationship with the works council in a procedural instruction, in order to avoid or coordinate parallel proceedings.

§ 17 AGG gives the works council the right to bring an action before the employment tribunal in cases of employer violations of the prohibition on discrimination (representative action). A non-functioning or unknown complaints office constitutes such a violation and may form the basis of a works council claim.

In proceedings before the employment tribunal, the complete procedural documentation of the complaints office — receipt, investigation, outcome, notification — is the employer's most important means of exculpation. Proof that the complaint was handled properly and that no further discrimination occurred can avert or significantly reduce the claim under § 15 AGG.

In companies that appoint an equal opportunities officer under the Federal Equal Opportunities Act (BGleiG) or the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG), confusion frequently arises about the delineation of roles: is the equal opportunities officer simultaneously the AGG complaints office?

The answer is structurally nuanced. The equal opportunities officer under BGleiG is responsible for implementing equal opportunities objectives in HR policy and has rights of participation and initiative vis-à-vis the authority. The AGG complaints office, by contrast, is a reactive, procedurally focused body: it receives complaints, reviews them and responds.

Both roles can be combined in one person, provided there is no conflict of interest. In practice, however, it should be borne in mind that the equal opportunities officer under BGleiG holds party status in equal opportunities proceedings and could therefore be conflicted in complaints concerning measures she has initiated. An external complaints office avoids this situation entirely.

For companies subject only to the AGG and not to the BGleiG, the question is more straightforward: the complaints office under § 13 AGG must be established; an equal opportunities officer is not mandatory. Nevertheless, a clear procedural instruction describing who is responsible for which type of equal treatment complaint is advisable — particularly where several persons perform complaints office functions.

CIVAC maps the AGG complaints office as a standalone officer role in the workspace. Licence the workspace for your internal equal opportunities officer, or have our certified partners operate the complaints office externally. Both routes use the same workspace, the same audit log, and the same audit-proof documentation.

The CIVAC workspace covers the following functions for the AGG complaints office: structured complaint form with confidential intake recording, role separation between intake handler and specialist reviewer, deadline management for processing periods, protocol template for each procedural phase, and an exportable case file for audit and litigation purposes. EU data residency and an ISO 27001:2022-compliant ISMS are built in, not retrofitted.

For external appointments, the CIVAC SLA applies: letter of appointment — signed, filed, demonstrable — within two business days. The external appointee assumes responsibility for receiving complaints, conducting fact-finding, and reporting back to the complainant. The auditor calls; the evidence is ready.

If you wish to establish the AGG complaints office on a sound structural footing and reduce liability risks under § 130 OWiG, please speak with us. Turn reading into a mandate: info@civac.de.