Pursuant to § 15 of the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG), issuers who trade on a German stock exchange must publish price-influencing facts: this is the ad-hoc obligation.
In keeping with this, facts that could have an influence on the issuer's share price must be conveyed to the stock exchanges as well as to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) prior to their being announced to the market via news channels.