The administrative court in Karlsruhe has ruled that Versorgungsanstalt des Bundes und der Länder (VBL), the €65bn supplementary pension fund for Germany’s public sector, must provide greater transparency on parts of its investment portfolio to members.
The court found that VBL is required to disclose information on individual holdings within ‘VBLklassik’, the pension scheme’s mandatory plan serving 5.3 million members.
The disclosure must include details such as asset class, issuer, country of origin and market value – provided the information does not qualify as a trade or business secret.
The case was brought by Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland and NGO Finanzwende, who sought access to official information on VBL’s investment strategy and ESG policy via the FragDenStaat transparency platform.
A spokesperson for the court told IPE the ruling represented a partial success for the plaintiffs.
“In the proceedings, VBL said that they would not release any information because they are business secret, and the judges had a different opinion on this,” the spokesperson said.
The court has yet to establish the legal basis for a broader right to access information, the spokesperson added.
VBL, in a statement issued following the decision, noted that the court had granted limited access to information covering only the years 2020 and 2021.
The fund reiterated its position that it is obligated to disclose information only to the extent that no trade or business secrets are affected. It pointed to existing disclosure obligations that it has fulfilled under Germany’s Securities Trading Act.
“The legal and practical implications of the ruling for VBL’s information obligations can only be assessed once the grounds for the ruling are available. These are expected in the coming weeks,” the statement said.
The court did not rule out the prospect of further legal action should VBL fail to meet its obligations in the future.
“It is also possible that VBL will say, after internal review, that they will give out all information, or only 90%, and it may be that if [the other part] doesn’t get everything, [they] will sue again,” the court spokesperson said.
Arne Semsrott, a plaintiff and representative of FragDenStaat, said the NGO now expects VBL to act swiftly and comprehensively. “For years, VBL has hidden behind flimsy excuses to circumvent its obligation to be transparent,” he said.
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