The issue at issue was the transfer of internal customer data from a head of Private Banking to a US company which had concluded a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the Department of Justice (“DoJ”) in 2015 in order to settle the tax dispute.
The bank informed the employee that it would notify the US authorities of eight client relationships for which he was responsible as a relationship manager. However, the employee in question refused to disclose the customer data and has now been granted the right by the Federal Supreme Court on the basis of the following considerations:
The federal court investigated whether the manager concerned had a vested interest in their customer data not being disclosed to the U.S. authorities. It was determined that the U.S. generally had inadequate data protection and that, even if the data was “not too intense,” there was a possibility that U.S. authorities would pursue the affected customers. This, in turn, would cause inconvenience to the account manager, which is why there is a vested interest.
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