Adopted in 2024, the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (EUCS3D, alternatively EUCSDDD) instructs member states to regulate human rights and environmental due diligence across business operations and their global value chains. Businesses started to familiarize themselves with the new directive to develop future compliance strategies. Despite its importance, the familiarization process has received little attention in research. Through interviews with employees and legal intermediaries, this paper investigates how multinational enterprises in the chocolate sector experienced this process. Drawing from socio‐legal theory, the findings show that business behavior adapts to shifts in regulatory governance that underpin key concepts of the EUCS3D, such as due diligence. Although the impact of those changes on the rights situation across global value chains remains uncertain, this paper contributes valuable insights for governance and compliance research. For practitioners, it underlines the importance of reliable transposition of rules for business, of multi‐partite negotiation in compliance‐relevant processes, and that appropriate regulatory governance may ease resistance to new regulation in interplay with business and global value chain context.

中文翻译：

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了解欧盟企业可持续发展尽职调查指令：跨国企业如何熟悉巧克力行业的监管

2024 年通过的欧盟企业可持续发展尽职调查指令（EUCS3D，或 EUCSDDD）指示成员国监管业务运营及其全球价值链中的人权和环境尽职调查。企业开始熟悉新指令，以制定未来的合规策略。尽管熟悉过程很重要，但在研究中却很少受到关注。通过对员工和法律中介的采访，本文调查了巧克力行业的跨国企业如何经历这一过程。从社会法律理论出发，研究结果表明，商业行为会适应支撑 EUCS3D 关键概念（例如尽职调查）的监管治理变化。尽管这些变化对全球价值链权利状况的影响仍不确定，但本文为治理和合规研究提供了有价值的见解。对于从业者来说，它强调了商业规则可靠转换的重要性，在合规相关流程中进行多方谈判的重要性，以及适当的监管治理可以在与商业和全球价值链环境相互作用的情况下缓解对新法规的抵制。