Artikel 7

1. Except as contemplated in Article 6, each Competent Authority will maintain the secrecy, to the extent permitted by law, of the request for assistance, the component parts of the request and the information gathered and provided pursuant to the request. Such secrecy may be waived, to the extent permitted by law, by the mutual agreement of the Competent Authorities of the Requesting and the Requested States.
2. When the Requesting Competent Authority has terminated the matter for which assistance has been requested under this Agreement, upon request of the Requested Competent Authority, it will return to the Requested Competent Authority, to the extent permitted by law, all documents and copies thereof and other material disclosing the contents of such documents not already disclosed in proceedings referred to in Article 6, or pursuant to paragraph 1 of this Article, other than material which is generated as part of the deliberative or internal analytical process of the Requesting Competent Authority.