Latham Client SCHUFA Prevails Again in GDPR Litigation Before German Federal Court of Justice

Today, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) set aside four judgments of the Dresden Higher Regional Court and remanded the cases. In the BGH’s view, the findings of the Dresden Higher Regional Court do not support the judgments against SCHUFA. The plaintiffs had challenged the data access processes of Latham’s client, and the Dresden Higher Regional Court had partially accepted their arguments. The BGH has now largely upheld SCHUFA’s data access practices for non-decisive scores. The Higher Regional Court must now decide the cases anew. The BGH largely followed the arguments of SCHUFA’s litigation team. With these rulings, the BGH has found in SCHUFA’s favor on key issues in four further data protection proceedings handled by Latham. The proceedings concerned automated decision-making and may therefore have some significance beyond the specific facts of the cases, for example in connection with decisions made by artificial intelligence.

Tim Wybitul, data law partner at Latham & Watkins, said, “We are delighted that our Latham data law team has secured four further victories for SCHUFA before the Federal Court of Justice. In my view, this demonstrates how unfounded some of the legal criticisms raised by plaintiffs or interest groups can be.”

Wolf-Tassilo Böhm, data law counsel at Latham & Watkins, said, “The Federal Court of Justice has made it clear that not every score automatically triggers far-reaching access rights. What matters is whether a score was actually decisive for a company’s contractual decision. The Federal Court of Justice has thereby strengthened the position of our client SCHUFA.”

The Latham team was led by Frankfurt data law partner Tim Wybitul and counsel Wolf-Tassilo Böhm, with associate Thies Schmitte. Matthias Siegmann (attorney admitted to the Federal Court of Justice) also advised SCHUFA in the proceedings.