Lloyd's Law Reporter Financial Crime
KS and MS v Germany
European Court of Human Rights, Judge Ganna Yudkivska, President, Judges Angelika Nußberger, André Potocki, Faris Vehabović, Síofra O'Leary, Carlo Ranzoni, Mārtiņ Mits and Milan Blako, Deputy Section Registrar, 6 October 2016
European Convention of Human Rights, article 8 - Respect for private and family life, home and correspondence - Search warrant - Illegally obtained evidence
The German secret service bought a data carrier from a former employee of a Liechtenstein bank. The data carrier contained financial data relating to 800 of the bank's customers, which the former employee had illegally copied from the bank. The German secret service gave the data carrier to the German tax investigation authorities, who subsequently instigated proceedings against, inter alia, Mr KS and Mrs MS (the "applicants"), in relation to tax evasion crimes.