Since November 2015 and July 2016, BaFin has been able to impose significantly higher sanctions for violations of the Securities Trading Act. The extended options for imposing sanctions are based on the Transparency Directive Amending Directive and the Market Abuse Directive. BaFin provides details of how it makes use of the sanctions available and how it calculates administrative fines in its WpHG Administrative Fine Guidelines II dated 23 February 2017. The revised guidelines apply to violations of the requirements on ad hoc disclosures, voting rights notifications and financial reporting.

In cases of serious offences, especially by consolidated groups with high revenue and a strong market capitalisation, BaFin will impose significantly higher fines in future. The reason for introducing turnover-based administrative fines was that European legislators wanted to allow a more severe level of punishment for larger companies in particularly serious cases. For example, for infringements of financial reporting requirements, BaFin can now impose administrative fines of up to €10 million, 5% of annual consolidated turnover or twice the economic benefit gained from committing the offence. Previously, BaFin was only able to impose fines up to a maximum of €200,000.

The WpHG Administrative Fine Guidelines II specify nominal base amounts, depending on the severity and the issuer's market capitalisation. BaFin calculates the individual fine on this basis, taking any mitigating or aggravating circumstances into account. Given the wide scope of the turnover-based upper limits of administrative fines, BaFin has a responsibility to proceed with a sense of proportion, in particular in the case of less serious offences. In individual cases, BaFin will determine fines that are far below the maximum levels specified by law.