Facts
By application dated June 17, 2016, five collective management organizations applied to the Federal Arbitration Commission for Copyright and Neighboring Rights (Arbitration Commission) for approval of a new Common Tariff GT 7 for the educational use of works. On November 30, 2016, the Arbitration Commission approved the tariff as requested.
By letter dated November 7, 2018, [A.] requested access to the documents submitted by the collective management organizations in the approval procedure from the Arbitration Commission. The Arbitration Commission refused access, as access to the documents concerned was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
[A.] then filed a complaint with the Federal Administrative Court, which upheld the complaint in a judgment dated April 9, 2020 and remanded the matter to the Arbitration Commission for re-evaluation. The Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) appealed this judgment to the Federal Supreme Court in a public law appeal.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court dismisses the appeal, insofar as it enters into it. It states that the Arbitration Commission, as an extra-parliamentary commission, belongs to the decentralized federal administration and is therefore within the personal scope of the Freedom of Information Act.
In the present tariff approval procedure with a negotiated tariff, however, the Arbitration Commission did not perform…