About C.H.BECK
At various locations throughout Europe, about 2,400 employees in the C.H.BECK group of media develop, produce, and market a broad range of digital and printed legal and academic professional information, as well as a distinguished portfolio of non-fiction and literary publications. Through its national and international publishing businesses, in-house printing operations, distribution companies, bookstores, seminar enterprises, and investments in legal tech and software companies, C.H.BECK covers the entire value chain of a modern media enterprise.
Founded in 1763 and to this day owned by the Beck family, Verlag C.H.BECK is Germany’s leading legal professional publisher. Economically independent, C.H.BECK stands for a demanding publishing program, renowned quality, and lasting stability and continuity. Over the past decades, the digital business has developed into a key pillar of the publishing house. Boasting Germany’s leading legal database, beck-online, pioneering AI applications such as Beck-Noxtua, and new digital product formats, C.H.BECK continues its transformation into an integrated provider of specialist information. At the same time, its print publishing remains strong, with up to 1,000 new publications and new editions annually, as well as around 100 distinguished and unique professional and academic journals.
The group’s headquarters are located in Munich, with a workforce of about 900 employees, while most editorial teams of the legal journals work in Frankfurt. Across these two locations, more than 120 specialist editors and commissioning editors collaborate with over 8,000 active authors.
C.H.BECK carries one of Germany’s oldest publishing traditions. In 1763, its founder Carl Gottlob Beck acquired a printing house in Nördlingen that had already been in existence for 130 years, expanding the business by adding a publishing house and a bookstore. The initials of his son and successor, Carl Heinrich Beck, remain part of the company’s name to this day. In 1889, Oscar Beck, the fourth-generation publisher, moved his publishing house to Munich, while the printing operations remained in Nördlingen.
From the mid-19th century onwards, the company expanded into a versatile academic publishing program while maintaining a small literary list. For several decades, C.H.BECK was a leading theological publisher. Later, C.H.BECK shifted the focus of its publishing program from theology to other academic disciplines, including history, classical studies, literary studies, and – last but not least – law, whose roots extend all the way back into the 19th century.
As the sixth-generation publisher, Hans Dieter Beck significantly strengthened the company’s position in the German-language legal literature market from 1970 onwards, while his brother Wolfgang Beck was the publisher heading the trade non-fiction and fiction list.
Today, the management of the publishing house and the governance of the group are entrusted to a multi-member executive board, which includes Jonathan Beck, a member of the seventh generation of the publishing family.
Current publishing activities are divided into two areas: the Law – Taxes – Economics division and the Literature – Non-Fiction – Science division. You are currently visiting the website of the law & economics publishing division; access to the literary & science publishing division is available here.
A major factor in the expansion of C.H.BECK’s legal publishing program was the founding of the German Empire in 1871, which shortly before the turn of the century led to the enactment of several important laws applicable throughout Germany, including the Code of Civil Procedure of 1876, the German Civil Code of 1896, and the Commercial Code of 1897. During the first half of the 20th century, numerous landmark works were established, including the collections of statutes Sartorius, Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgesetze (from 1903), Habersack, Deutsche Gesetze (published as Schönfelder from 1931 to 2021), the legal commentary Grüneberg, Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (published as Palandt from 1938 to 2021), and the Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (from 1947). To this day, these works continue to define C.H.BECK’s public image. The company was also an early pioneer in databases and digital media, publishing its first legal database on CD-ROM as early as 1989.
Today, the publishing house provides all relevant publication formats. The centerpiece of its digital portfolio is the beck-online database, introduced in 2001, which comprises more than 60 million documents, making it one of Germany’s most comprehensive legal information systems. This is complemented by intelligent research tools such as the beck-chat. In addition, C.H.BECK develops digital solutions covering the entire legal workflow. These include AI-supported applications, interactive professional information, and hybrid formats that combine content and technology. With the legal AI workspace Beck-Noxtua, C.H.BECK provides a solution specifically tailored to legal requirements for research, analysis, and document creation while meeting the highest standards of European data protection and digital sovereignty. New formats such as Chat-Books provide additional ways of using legal content.
Besides its digital solutions, C.H.BECK continues to produce traditional publication formats, ranging from multi-volume specialist works and practice-oriented handbooks to commentaries, textbooks, loose-leaf publications, and statutory texts. In addition, BeckAkademie Seminare has successfully offered continuing legal education seminars in various areas of law since the 1980s.
Regardless of the publication format, C.H.BECK’s goal to this day has always been to meet the demand for professional legal information as broadly and comprehensively as possible across all areas of law, including tax law, with a particular focus on legal practice.
In Nördlingen, the company’s historic home, C.H.BECK continues to operate its own printing facility, employing close to 400 people, including the C.H.Beck.Media.Solutions division, one of the leading providers of typesetting and electronic media services in the German-speaking world. The group’s own logistics operation, Nördlinger Verlagsauslieferung, is also based there. The group is further complemented by specialist information retailer Schweitzer, as well as various specialist publishers, seminar providers, and software companies in Germany and abroad.
C.H.BECK is the majority shareholder of dtv Verlagsgesellschaft, where, among other publications, the Beck Statute Books are issued in affordable paperback editions. In 1970, C.H.BECK significantly expanded its business and economics as well as legal publishing programs through the acquisition of Franz Vahlen Verlag. Since then, the group has continued its growth by incorporating Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft in Baden-Baden (since 1999), KSV Medien (formerly Kommunal- und Schul-Verlag) in Wiesbaden (since 2004), Mannheim-based id Verlag (since 2009), and AWA Außenwirtschafts-Akademie (since 2018).
Internationally, C.H.Beck Warsaw and C.H.Beck Prague were founded in 1993 and today rank among the leading legal publishers in their respective countries. A few years later, majority stakes were acquired in the Swiss publishing house Helbing & Lichtenhahn in Basel. A further branch office was established in Bratislava in 2011. In Zurich, Dike Verlag has been part of the group since 2015, Versus Verlag since 2021, and Unionsverlag since 2023. These various international activities are complemented by membership in the Law Publishers in Europe (LPE) association and by numerous co-publications with legal specialist publishers worldwide.
See below for a list of all members of the C.H.BECK group.
Verlagsadressen
Stammhaus
VERLAG C.H.Beck GmbH & Co. KG
Wilhelmstraße 9
80801 München
Telefon: (0 89) 3 81 89-0
Postanschrift:
Postfach 40 03 40
80703 München
Öffentlicher Nahverkehr:
U3 oder U6 Station Giselastraße
VERLAG C.H.Beck GmbH & Co. KG
Zeitschriftenredaktionen
Beethovenstraße 7b
60325 Frankfurt/Main
Telefon: (0 69) 75 60 91-0
Fax: (0 69) 75 60 91-49
Verlag Franz Vahlen GmbH
Postfach 40 03 40
80703 München
Telefon: (0 89) 3 81 89-0
E-Mail: webmaster@vahlen.de
Internet: www.vahlen.de
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG
Waldseestraße 3-5
76530 Baden-Baden
Telefon: (0 72 21) 21 04-0
Fax: (0 72 21) 21 04-27
E-Mail: nomos@nomos.de
Internet: www.nomos.de
KSV Mediengesellschaft mbH & Co. KG
Konrad-Adenauer-Ring 13
65187 Wiesbaden
Telefon: (0 611) 8 80 86-0
Fax: (0 611) 8 80 86-77
E-Mail: info@ksv-medien.de
Internet: www.ksv-medien.de
id Verlags GmbH
Harrlachweg 4
68163 Mannheim
Telefon: (0 621) 1 20 32-0
Fax: (0 621) 2 83 83
E-Mail: boettger@id-verlag.de
Internet: www.ibr-online.de
dtv Verlagsgesellschaft
mbH & Co.
KG
Tumblingerstraße 21
80337 München
Telefon: (0 89) 3 81 67-0
Fax: (0 89) 34 64 28
E-mail: info@dtv.de
Internet: www.dtv.de
Helbing Lichtenhahn Verlag AG (Schweiz) & Co. KG, München (D)
Elisabethenstraße 8
CH - 4051 Basel
Telefon: 0041 (0)61 2 28 90 70
Fax: 0041 (0)61 2 28 90 71
E-Mail: info@helbing.ch
Internet:
www.helbing.ch
Dike Verlag AG
Weinbergstraße 41
CH - 8006 Zürich
Telefon: 0041 (0)44 2 51 58 30
Fax: 0041 (0)44 251 58 29
E-Mail: verlag@dike.ch
Internet: www.dike.ch
Versus Verlag AG
Merkurstraße 45
CH - 8032 Zürich
Telefon: 0041 (0) 44 2 51 08 92
Fax: 0041 (0) 44 2 62 67 38
E-Mail: info@versus.ch
Internet: www.versus.ch
Unionsverlag
Neptunstrasse 20
CH - 8032 Zürich
Telefon: 0041 (0)44 2 83 20 00
E-Mail: mail@unionsverlag.ch
Internet: www.unionsverlag.com
Polen
Wydawnictwo C.H. Beck Sp. z o.o.
ul. Bonifraterska 17
PL - 00-203 Warszawa
Telefon: 0048 / 22 / 33 77 600
Fax: 0048 / 22 / 33 77 601
E-Mail: redakcja@beck.pl
Internet: www.beck.pl
Tschechien
Nakladatelstvi C.H. Beck s.r.o.
Jungmannova 34
CZ - 110 00 Praha 1
Telefon: 00420/ 2 / 25 993 959
Fax: 00420 / 2 / 25 993 950
E-Mail: beck@beck.cz
Internet: www.beck.cz
Slowakei
Nakladatelstvi C.H. Beck s.r.o.
organizacná zlozka
Michalská 9
SK - 811 01 Bratislava
Telefon: 00421/ 911 / 45 37 82
E-Mail: beck@beck.sk
Internet: www.beck.sk