Schutz von Bankmitarbeiterdaten in Amtshilfeverfahren

In a landmark decision at the end of 2017, the Federal Supreme Court stated that in administrative assistance documents the names of bank employees must always be redacted. In July 2020, it took two further landmark decisions on the legal position of bank employees and other third parties in administrative assistance proceedings. Firstly, it concluded that, in general, an intended data transfer need not be disclosed to third parties, unless they are obviously entitled to appeal. Secondly, the Federal Supreme Court held that the requesting state may not use vis-à-vis third parties the information it obtained by way of administrative assistance (the so-called principle of speciality). In doing so, the Federal Supreme Court disregards the view of the OECD. This paper critically analyses the case law of the Federal Supreme Court and explores the relationship between these recent decisions. The paper concludes that the apparently balanced system of the Federal Supreme Court runs the risk…