Federal Supreme Court, 15.09.2026, 2C_534/2026
Facts
In the context of a request for administrative assistance in tax matters submitted by France based on the Franco-Swiss Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation (CH-FR DTA), A. SA, acting as agent for the Swiss holder of the information, and its employee B. requested that the Federal Tax Administration (FTA) recognize their status as parties to the proceedings, suspend the proceedings, and redact their personal data. The FTA rejected the requests regarding party status and suspension. Upon appeal, the Federal Administrative Court (FAC) refused to order provisional measures to prevent the transmission of unredacted documents, finding that information concerning their activities as tax representatives was likely relevant. The interested parties appealed this interlocutory decision to the Federal Supreme Court (FSC) (consid. 1.3.3).
Law
Under the principle of unity of proceedings, an interlocutory decision may only be appealed in public law matters if the decision on the merits is itself subject to such an appeal. In matters of international administrative assistance in tax matters,Art. 84a of the Federal Supreme Court Act (FSCA) makes the admissibility of an appeal conditional upon the existence of a legal question of principle or a particularly important case within the meaning ofArt. 84 para. 2 FSCA. It is incumbent upon the appellants to demonstrate that these conditions are met in accordance withArt. 42 para. 2 LTF (consid. 1.1 and 1.2).
A legal question of principle must have significance beyond the individual case and require clarification by the FSC. It must also be capable of influencing the outcome of the dispute. According toArt. 56 of the Federal Act on Administrative Procedure (APA), the appellate authority may order provisional measures to preserve an existing situation or to provisionally protect threatened interests. However, when an interlocutory decision is based on this general provision, the legal question raised must be specifically linked to administrative assistance in tax matters to satisfy the requirements of Art. 84a FSCA (consid. 1.2.1 and 1.3.2).
Application to the specific case
The appellants argue that the refusal of provisional measures would render their legal protection illusory, particularly regarding the recognition of their party status, data protection, and the redaction of personal information. They also invoke constitutional guarantees and revised data protection legislation (consid. 1.3.1).
The FSC notes, however, that the FAC rejected the provisional measures due to the lack of prospects for success regarding the redaction claims, as information relating to the identity of tax representatives was considered likely to be relevant. The legal question raised by the appellants does not address this decisive assessment. In particular, they do not formulate any question of principle concerning the likely relevance of the names of tax advisors appearing in declarations and their annexes. Their argument therefore does not present a concrete legal interest justifying the intervention of the FSC (consid. 1.3.3 and 1.3.4).
Furthermore, the appellants do not demonstrate any qualified violation of their procedural rights. The inability to comment on the FTA's observations before the interlocutory decision was rendered does not constitute a sufficiently serious violation of the right to reply in the context of provisional measures. The existence of a particularly important case is therefore excluded (consid. 1.4).
Outcome
The FSC declares the appeal inadmissible due to the absence of a legal question of principle or a particularly important case. It also rejects the request to restrict the publication of the judgment beyond its standard anonymization on the Internet, as no extraordinarily serious infringement of personality rights has been demonstrated. The court costs, set at CHF 5,000, are to be borne by the appellants in equal shares and jointly and severally, with no award of legal costs (consid. 2 and 3).