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ARTICLE · 23 JANUARY 2025

No Ban On Seizing Documents From Internal Investigations

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The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled in cases 1022/19 and 1125/19 on the appeal of two lawyers and the law firm Jones Day against the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on the search and seizure of documents from an internal investigation.

GermanyGovernment, Public Sector
Christian Pelz
Christian Pelz
Ingo Theusinger
Ingo Theusinger

The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled in cases 1022/19 and 1125/19 on the appeal of two lawyers and the law firm Jones Day against the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on the search and seizure of documents from an internal investigation.

Jones Day had conducted an internal investigation for Volkswagen AG. In connection with investigations against unknown persons responsible at AUDI AG, the Munich II public prosecutor's office had Jones Day's offices searched and documents relating to Jones Day's investigations at and in connection with AUDI AG seized. Complaints by Jones Day against the search and seizure were unsuccessful. Neither the Regional Court of Munich I nor the Federal Constitutional Court considered the search and seizure to be a violation of Section 160a (5) in conjunction with Section 97 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO) or Article 12 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (GG). This was justified by the fact

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