Dismissal of the Administrative Court Appeal against the Ruling on Administrative Assistance of the Federal Banking Commission

Facts

The appellants [A.X.] and [B.X.] filed an administrative court appeal against the ruling of the Federal Banking Commission (FBC) of 25 October 2001 on 5 December 2001. The FBC had decided to grant the request of the German Federal Supervisory Office for Securities Trading (BAWe) for administrative assistance in the case "Glunz AG" and to transmit information on transactions of the appellants to it.

The appellants argued that administrative assistance in relation to Germany was excluded due to a lack of sufficient confidentiality of the supervisory procedure and that the required initial suspicion for administrative assistance was lacking or had been refuted.

The Federal Court dismissed the appeal and confirmed the FBC's ruling on administrative assistance.

Considerations

The Federal Court found that the FBC's ruling on administrative assistance was lawful, as the requirements of Art. 38 para. 2 of the Federal Act on Stock Exchanges and Securities Trading (SESTA) were met. The BAWe is a foreign stock exchange supervisory authority to which the FBC can provide administrative assistance.

The Federal Court also found that the FBC was entitled to assess the development of the "Glunz" share price as suspicious, after the ordinary share had risen by 20% of its value within a few days before the announcement of the takeover intentions by "TAFISA S.A." and the preference share had also recovered significantly before the announcement…