The language in which the disclosure must be made public is governed by section 3b of the WpAV. Three scenarios are particularly important in this context:

1. Where the securities of an issuer whose home country is the Federal Republic of Germany under section 2 (13) of the WpHG are only admitted to trading on an organised market in Germany, the information must be made public in German, as required by 3b (2) sentence 1 of the WpAV. Where the securities are admitted to trading on an organised market in Germany and in one or more other member states of the EU or in one or more other signatory states to the Agreement on the EEA, the information must be made public in German or English and, at the issuer’s discretion, in a language accepted by the competent authorities of the relevant member states of the EU or the respective signatory states to the Agreement on the EEA, or in English.
2. A domestic issuer within the meaning of section 2 (14) no. 2 of the WpHG must make public the information in German or in English, as required by section 3b (3) of the WpAV. An issuer whose registered office is in Germany and whose securities are not admitted to trading on an organised market in Germany but in more than one other member state of the EU or signatory state to the Agreement on the EEA must make public the information, at the issuer’s discretion, in one of the languages accepted by the competent authorities of the relevant member states of the European Union or the relevant signatory states to the Agreement on the EEA, or in English; in addition, it may also make public the information in German.
3. Issuers whose registered office is outside Germany or issuers whose home country is the Federal Republic of Germany under section 2 (13) no. 2(a) of the WpHG, or who have filed with BaFin a prospectus in English for the securities to which the information relates, may make the information public in English only, as allowed by section 3b (1) of the WpAV.

Special requirements additionally apply to issuers whose financial instruments have been admitted to trading with a minimum denomination per unit of €100,000 or €50,000 or a corresponding equivalent amount (see section 3b (4) and (5) of the WpAV).

Under section 3b (6) of the WpAV, the language regime described above also applies to MTF and OTF issuers and to emission allowance market participants.

Where inside information is made public in various languages, the requirement for the disclosure to be made without undue delay must be observed.

However, section 3b of the WpAV does not contain any requirement specifying the language in which a notification of delay must be made public. To comply with the requirement for disclosure as soon as possible in the final subparagraph of Article 17(4) of the MAR, BaFin will accept notification in English without undue delay of the decision to delay for issuers who are entitled to make public inside information only in English. A German translation can then be provided subsequently.