Transmission of information and evidence
Article 5
1. Information and evidence transmitted or received under this Agreement, whatever its form, shall be subject to professional confidentiality and shall enjoy the protection enjoyed by comparable information conferred by the domestic law of the Contracting Party receiving it and by the corresponding provisions applicable to the Community institutions. In particular, such information and evidence may not be divulged to persons other than those who, in the Community institutions, the Member States or the Swiss Confederation, are required by their functions to be acquainted with it, nor used by them for purposes that are not within the scope of this Agreement. 2. The information and evidence obtained by the requesting Contracting Party under this Agreement may be transmitted to any Contracting Party if this Contracting Party is conducting an investigation in respect of which cooperation is not excluded or if there are clear indications that this Contracting Party could usefully conduct such an investigation. No such transmission may serve any purpose other than those of this Agreement. 3. The transmission of information and evidence obtained pursuant to this Agreement by a Contracting Party to another Contracting Party or to more than one Contracting Party may not be open to appeal in the Contracting Party initially requested. 4. Any Contracting Party to which information or evidence is transmitted in conformity with paragraph 2 shall respect such limits as are put by the requested Contracting Party on the use of the information by the requesting Contracting Party of the first transmission. 5. The transmission of information and evidence obtained under this Agreement by a Contracting Party to a third State shall be subject to authorisation from the Contracting Party from which the information or evidence originated.