Bank – Court Ruling (Germany, 2023)

The case entailed a dispute between a bank (the data subject) and a tax office (the processor). In 2019 the plaintiff, here the bank, had received a letter from the tax office, here the data processor, which informed the plaintiff about results of certain tax investigations in relation to investment funds in which the plaintiff was custodian. The plaintiff sent the tax office a letter on the basis of Section 91 of the Fiscal Code to exercise his right to be heard and for inspection of those fails. The tax office rejected the letter and also following objection of the bank. In response the plaintiff filed a lawsuit with the Munich Finance Court against the rejection of the information on the basis of Article 15(3) GDPR. The bank was aiming to obtain a copy of its data processed by the tax office and annul the earlier decision of the tax office. The tax office rejected the claims of plaintiff and provided that right to inspect the files or to receive a copy of the content of the files concerned does not fall under the scope of Article 15 GDPR. Furthermore, the tax office was ofmthe opinion that a claim for the information had already expired as the plaintiff already had the needed information. The FG München dismissed the claim. It held that, even though data subject would have a right to a acess under Article 15 GDPR, then it does not extend to current circumstances. The court held that GDPR does not vest the data subject with a right to full texts within a file, especially if the files contain unrecorded source data. The court ruled that the right to information under GDPR extends in the present case only to the input data processed for the specific tax assessments. The court was of the opinion, that the tax office had done all that is necessary and that is required by law by providing the plaintiff with the documents on capital gains and there are no reasons to doubt about the truthfulness of the tax office. The plaintiff can exercise rights stemming from procedural provisions of the Fiscal Code The plaintiff can have an access to the documents, which were submitted to the court by the tax offixe. Consequently, the court held that GDPR does not grant the bank, here the data subject a right to inspect the files to which latter requested access to. The reason for no acess comes from restrictions, which apply to tax records.