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In its ruling of March 5, 2024, the Federal Court of Justice clarified that the right to "copies" within the meaning of Art. 15 para. 3 GDPR does not refer to the complete documents relating to the data subject. The claim only relates to the personal data itself, not to the documents in which it is contained. The data subject may request complete copies of such - still existing - documents that they themselves have created and sent to the party obliged to provide information, such as their own emails or letters. However, there is generally no entitlement to the complete handover of, for example, file notes, telephone notes or consultation minutes.

If the court of first instance assumed that the weight of the losing party was more than € 600.00 and therefore saw no reason to decide on the admission of the appeal, according to the case law of the Federal Court of Justice, the court of appeal, which assesses the weight to be lower, can decide on the admission of the appeal. However, if such an assessment by the lower court is doubtful, for example because it may have assumed that a non-pecuniary dispute exists, the court of appeal is prevented from making a subsequent decision on the admission of the appeal. The appeal is then not admissible.

In the so-called Wirecard scandal, the Federal Court of Justice ruled that the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) had not breached its duties to supervise compliance with, among other things, the provisions of the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG), in particular balance sheet control and market abuse monitoring.

In a ruling dated 21.12.2023, the Federal Court of Justice stated that strict requirements must be applied to the assumption that a witness is unavailable and that a court must generally do everything possible to hear a witness who is resident abroad. If there is a mutual legal assistance treaty with the country in which the witness is located, an attempt must be made to obtain a hearing by means of mutual legal assistance, possibly by video conference. The court must also justify its assumption that the testimony of a witness is only of probative value if it can hear the witness itself. If it fails to do so, the right to be heard of the party who relied on the witness is violated.