Limits to the right of access under the aDPA

Centre for banking and financial law (CDBF)

Obtaining the relevant extracts from the database needed to assess FINMA’s guarantees of irreproachable activity (formerly Watchlist) is a real crossroads for an employee who has temporarily given up exercising an activity subject to FINMA. The Federal Administrative Court (FAT) has confirmed that art. 8 aLPD (now art. 25 LPD) does not allow access to the documents that justified inclusion on the Watchlist to the same extent as in a genuine procedure on the merits to determine whether an individual offers all the guarantees of irreproachable activity (Properness procedure, in German Gewährsverfahren ; ruling B-915/2022 of 3 April 2024).