Case C-557/16, Astellas Pharma – measuring the data exclusivity period on a marketing authorisation [judgment 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:181]
By judgment of 14 March 2018 (ECLI:EU:C:2018:181) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “1.
Tag
charter
56 case reports
Case C-426/16, Liga van Moskeeën – ritual killing [judgment 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:335]
By judgment of 29 May 2018 (ECLI:EU:C:2018:335) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Examination of the question has not disclosed any issues capable of affecting the validity of Article 4(4) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 of 24…
Case C-451/16, MB – trans pension discrimination [judgment 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:492]
By judgment of 26 June 2018 (ECLI:EU:C:2018:492) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Council Directive 79/7/EEC of 19 December 1978 on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of…
Case C-425/16, Raimund – mulling over infringement before invalidity in trade mark procedural law [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:776]
By judgment of 19 October 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:776) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “1.
Case C-470/16, North East Pylon Pressure Campaign – piling on the environmental information pressure [judgment 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:185]
By judgment of 15 March 2018 (ECLI:EU:C:2018:185) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “1.
Case C-358/16, UBS – stopping a lawyer accessing innocence-establishing documents [judgment 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:715]
By judgment of 13 September 2018 (ECLI:EU:C:2018:715) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Article 54 of Directive 2004/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on markets in financial instruments amending…
Case C-434/16, Nowak – seeking to access his exam script because it is personal data [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:994]
By judgment of 20 December 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:994) the Court held that a candidate's written answers in a professional examination — and the examiner's comments on them — are the candidate's personal data, opening access and rectification rights adapted…
Case C-194/16, Bolagsupplysningen – objecting to Swedish internet trolls [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:766]
By Grand Chamber judgment of 17 October 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:766) the Court held that a legal person claiming injury from online publications may sue for its entire damage where it has its centre of interests, and that claims for rectification and removal…
Case C-207/16, Ministerio Fiscal – Digital Rights Ireland robs Spanish police of telephone data request [judgment 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:788]
By judgment of 2 October 2018 (ECLI:EU:C:2018:788) the Court held that police access limited to the identity data of SIM-card holders is not a serious interference with fundamental rights and may therefore be justified for investigating offences that are…
Case C-143/16, Abercrombie and Fitch – Italy’s labour law for the under 25’s [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:566]
By judgment of 19 July 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:566) the Court held that Italy's on-call contracts available to workers under 25 and terminating automatically at that age are not precluded by the prohibition of age discrimination: the flexibility served a…
Case C-112/16, Persidera – access to Italian broadcasting frequencies [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:597]
By judgment of 26 July 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:597) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “1.
Case C-210/16, Wirtschaftsakademie Schleswig-Holstein – Facebook Fan Page visitor data [judgment 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:388]
On 5 June 2018 the Grand Chamber ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2018:388) that the administrator of a Facebook fan page is a joint controller, together with Facebook, of the processing of visitors' data through the Insights statistics — and that the German supervisory…
Case C-73/16, Puškár – privacy requires removal from a tax office blacklist [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:725]
By judgment of 27 September 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:725) the Court held that requiring exhaustion of administrative remedies before a data-protection claim reaches a court is compatible with Article 47 of the Charter if it causes no substantial delay or…
Case C-64/16, Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses – a pay cut ends judicial independence [judgment 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:117]
On 27 February 2018 the Grand Chamber ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2018:117) that Article 19(1) TEU obliges Member States to ensure that courts which may apply EU law meet the requirements of effective judicial protection, including independence — though Portugal's…
Case C-327/15, TDC – SOS! An illegal cross-financing mechanism [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:974]
By judgment of 21 December 2016 (ECLI:EU:C:2016:974) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “1.
Case C-78/16, Pesce – against an overly fastidious state combating xylella fastidiosa [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:428]
By judgment of 9 June 2016 in the joined Pesce cases (ECLI:EU:C:2016:428) the Court upheld the Commission's Xylella fastidiosa decision: the obligation to remove host plants, including asymptomatic ones, within 100 metres of infected plants is a…
Case C-682/15, Berlioz Investment Fund – tax information exchanges not fishing expeditions [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:373]
By Grand Chamber judgment of 16 May 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:373) the Court held that a company fined for refusing to answer a cross-border tax-information order may invoke Article 47 of the Charter: the national court must be able to review whether the…
Case C-544/15, Fahimian – aspiring to research a technology of control [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:255]
By judgment of 4 April 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:255) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Article 6(1)(d) of Council Directive 2004/114/EC of 13 December 2004 on the conditions of admission of third-country nationals for the purposes of…
Case C-566/15, Erzberger – the extra-territorial application of German worker representation law [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:562]
By judgment of 18 July 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:562) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Article 45 TFEU must be interpreted as not precluding legislation of a Member State, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, under which the…
Case C-560/15, Europa Way – denied free access to Italy’s broadcasting frequencies [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:593]
By judgment of 26 July 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:593) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “1.
Case C-698/15, Davis – did the CJEU in Digital Rights Ireland intend to lay down mandatory requirements of EU law? [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:970]
Joined with Tele2 Sverige and decided by Grand Chamber judgment of 21 December 2016 (ECLI:EU:C:2016:970): yes, Digital Rights Ireland's standards bind national regimes — Article 15(1) of the e-Privacy Directive, read with the Charter, precludes general and…
Case C-610/15, Stichting Brein – seeking website blocks to stop peer to peer technology [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:456]
On 14 June 2017 the Court ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2017:456) that the operators of The Pirate Bay themselves make a communication to the public by indexing and managing torrents of protected works, despite the content sitting on users' machines.
Case C-526/15, Uber Belgium – facilitating a mobility service not a taxi service [order 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:830]
By order of 27 October 2016 (ECLI:EU:C:2016:830) the Court declared the Brussels commercial court's reference manifestly inadmissible for failure to set out the factual and legal context required by Article 94 of the Rules of Procedure.
Case C-536/15, Tele2 Nederland – Goodbye Belgian Operator! Our Dutch telephone directory data will not be supplied! [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:214]
By judgment of 15 March 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:214) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “1.
Case C-398/15, Manni – data in public registers should be subject to the Google right to be forgotten [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:197]
On 9 March 2017 the Court ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2017:197) that there is no general right to have personal data erased from the companies register: the publicity of such registers pursues legal certainty for third parties and data may be kept indefinitely.
Case C-301/15, Soulier and Doke – objecting to a French out-of-print-book scheme [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:878]
By judgment of 16 November 2016 (ECLI:EU:C:2016:878) the Court held that the French scheme licensing digital exploitation of out-of-print books precluded authors' exclusive rights: consent may sometimes be implicit, but only where every author is actually…
Case C-134/15, Lidl – shelving EU pricing law [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:498]
By judgment of 30 June 2016 (ECLI:EU:C:2016:498) the Court found nothing affecting the validity of the poultrymeat labelling requirement: obliging retailers to show the total price and price per unit of weight on prepacked fresh poultry is a proportionate…
Case C-188/15, Bougnaoui – wearing an Islamic headscarf in the information society [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:204]
By judgment of 14 March 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:204) the Court held that an employer's willingness to accommodate a customer's wish no longer to have services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf is not a "genuine and determining occupational…
Case C-203/15, Tele2 Sverige – Swedish data retention despite Digital Rights Ireland [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:970]
On 21 December 2016 the Grand Chamber ruled in the joined Tele2/Watson cases (ECLI:EU:C:2016:970) that Article 15(1) of the e-Privacy Directive, read with the Charter, precludes national legislation imposing general and indiscriminate retention of traffic…
Case C-192/15, Rease – secretly spied on, medical data leaked, and left unprotected by the Dutch regulator
Can the Dutch Data Protection Agency exert any control over companies based in the UK and the USA which conduct covert surveillance on Dutch territory? And in the event of an individual’s data processing law rights under Dutch law being … Continue reading → Continue reading →
Case C-160/15, GS Media – Porn! Hyperlinked and Hyperleaked! [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:644]
On 8 September 2016 the Court ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2016:644) that posting a hyperlink to works published online without the rightholder's consent is a communication to the public where the poster knew or ought to have known of the illegality.
Case A-1/15, The Canada-EU ‘PNR’ Agreement – contrary to the EU Charter?
Canada and the EU have negotiated a new Passenger Name Record Agreement. A plank of the Agreement involves the transfer and processing of data. The European Parliament is asking the CJEU for a legal opinion on the compatibility of that … Continue reading → Continue reading →
Case C-19/15, Verband Sozialer Wettbewerb – stopping a company making health claims to doctors [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:563]
By judgment of 14 July 2016 (ECLI:EU:C:2016:563) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Article 1(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 on nutrition and health claims made on…
Case C-72/15, Rosneft – challenging the EU’s sectoral sanctions against Russia [judgment 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:236]
By Grand Chamber judgment of 28 March 2017 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:236) the Court confirmed its jurisdiction to review the validity of CFSP restrictive measures by preliminary ruling — a constitutional first — and found nothing affecting the validity of the…
Case C-582/14, Breyer – seeing the logs from the trees in privacy law [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:779]
By judgment of 19 October 2016 (ECLI:EU:C:2016:779) the Court held that a dynamic IP address registered by a website operator is personal data where the operator has legal means to have the visitor identified via the access provider.
Case C-41/15, Dowling – the illegal takeover of a bank and the Irish bailout [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:836]
By judgment of 8 November 2016 (ECLI:EU:C:2016:836) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Article 8(1) and Articles 25 and 29 of the Second Council Directive 77/91/EEC of 13 December 1976 on coordination of safeguards which, for the…
Case C-547/14, Philip Morris Brands – the Second Tobacco Products Directive is invalid [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:325]
On 4 May 2016 the Court upheld the Second Tobacco Products Directive in full (ECLI:EU:C:2016:325): the menthol ban, the labelling and standardisation rules, the leeway for further national packaging measures and the specific e-cigarette regime of Article…
Case C-484/14, McFadden – a mere conduit? [judgment 2016, ECLI:EU:C:2016:689]
On 15 September 2016 the Court ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2016:689) that a shopkeeper offering free open Wi-Fi provides a "mere conduit" service and cannot be held liable in damages for users' infringements.
Case C-201/14, Bara – giving personal data and consent to processing for just one purpose [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:638]
By judgment of 1 October 2015 (ECLI:EU:C:2015:638) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Articles 10, 11 and 13 of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995, on the protection of individuals with…
Case C-362/14, Schrems – does a ‘safe harbour’ shelter states that deprive EU citizens of their EU Charter rights? [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:650]
On 6 October 2015 the Grand Chamber declared the Safe Harbour adequacy decision invalid (ECLI:EU:C:2015:650): a regime permitting generalised access by US authorities to transferred data compromised the essence of Article 7 of the Charter, and the absence…
Case C-362/14, Schrems – does a ‘safe harbour’ shelter states that deprive EU citizens of their EU Charter rights? [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:650]
On 6 October 2015 the Grand Chamber declared the Safe Harbour adequacy decision invalid (ECLI:EU:C:2015:650): a regime permitting generalised access by US authorities to transferred data compromised the essence of Article 7 of the Charter, and the absence…
Case C-157/14, Neptune – mineral water salinity [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:823]
By judgment of 17 December 2015 (ECLI:EU:C:2015:823) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “1.
Case C-147/14, Loutfi – Arabic words in Arabic and Latin scripts under EU trade mark law [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:420]
By judgment of 25 June 2015 (ECLI:EU:C:2015:420) the Court held that where an EU trade mark and a contested sign contain a dominant Arabic word in both Latin and Arabic script, and the relevant public has a basic knowledge of written Arabic, the meaning…
Case C-354/13, Kaltoft – employment equality for the obese [judgment 2014, ECLI:EU:C:2014:2463]
On 18 December 2014 the Court ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2014:2463) that EU law contains no general principle prohibiting discrimination on grounds of obesity as such — but that severe obesity can constitute a "disability" under Directive 2000/78 where it entails a…
Case C-1/14, KPN Group Belgium and Mobistar – telecom objections to financing Belgium’s digitally excluded [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:378]
By judgment of 11 June 2015 (ECLI:EU:C:2015:378) the Court ruled, in the words of the operative part: “Directive 2002/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 March 2002 on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic…
Case C-316/13, Fenoll – it is no holiday in a French work rehabilitation centre [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:200]
On 26 March 2015 the Court ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2015:200) that a person performing real and genuine activities in a French work-rehabilitation centre (CAT) is a "worker" for the purposes of the Working Time Directive and thus entitled to paid annual leave,…
Case C-46/13, H – challenging more of the EU’s data retention Directive
When you use a telephone or go onto the internet a company registers and stores data about you. Companies are obliged to do this not for billing purposes but because of the EU’s data retention Directive 2006/24/EC. Can you access … Continue reading →
Case C-449/12, van Luijk – No fingerprints? No Dutch passport. [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:238]
The reference was decided in the joined Willems judgment of 16 April 2015 (ECLI:EU:C:2015:238): the fingerprint obligation for passports stands (as upheld in Schwarz), and Regulation 2252/2004 does not govern any subsequent storage or use of the biometrics…
Case C-447/12, Kooistra – No fingerprints? No Dutch ID card. [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:238]
The reference was decided in the joined Willems judgment of 16 April 2015 (ECLI:EU:C:2015:238): Regulation 2252/2004 does not apply to identity cards at all, whatever their travel validity — so the fingerprint requirement for Dutch ID cards was a purely…
Case C-446/12, Willems – No fingerprints? No Dutch passport. No travel outside the EU. [judgment 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:238]
By judgment of 16 April 2015 in the joined Willems cases (ECLI:EU:C:2015:238) the Court held that Regulation 2252/2004 obliges the taking of fingerprints for passports (as upheld in Schwarz) but does not govern any subsequent use or storage of that…
Case C-311/12, Kassner – does EU law stop the social partners eroding paid annual leave?
French farmers have been nipping over the Spanish border to go shopping for their veterinary medicinal products. This is not allowed under French law, only French-authorised wholesalers can import veterinary drugs. The French farmers wonder if the internal market exists. Continue reading →
Case C-370/12, Pringle – is the ESM Treaty compatible with the EU Treaties? [judgment 2012, ECLI:EU:C:2012:756]
On 27 November 2012 the full Court upheld the European Stability Mechanism (ECLI:EU:C:2012:756): the simplified revision of Article 136 TFEU was valid, and the no-bailout clause of Article 125 TFEU does not prohibit a stability mechanism whose assistance…
Case C-291/12, Michael Schwarz – No fingerprints? No passport. An invalid EC Regulation? [judgment 2013, ECLI:EU:C:2013:670]
On 17 October 2013 the Court upheld the validity of Regulation 2252/2004 (ECLI:EU:C:2013:670): taking and storing fingerprints in passports interferes with Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter, but the interference is justified by the aim of preventing…
Case C-314/12, UPC Telekabel Wien – a proportionate stop to people watching Vicky the Viking on a website? [judgment 2014, ECLI:EU:C:2014:192]
On 27 March 2014 the Court ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2014:192) that an access provider whose services are used to infringe copyright is an "intermediary" that may be enjoined, and that an outcome-based blocking injunction — leaving the choice of measures to the ISP…
Case C-293/12, Digital Rights Ireland – telecoms, privacy and freedom of expression [judgment 2014, ECLI:EU:C:2014:238]
On 8 April 2014 the Grand Chamber declared the Data Retention Directive 2006/24 invalid in its entirety (ECLI:EU:C:2014:238): blanket retention of everyone's traffic and location data, without differentiation, limits or objective access criteria, exceeded…
Case C-176/12, Association de médiation sociale – who counts as a member of staff? [judgment 2014, ECLI:EU:C:2014:2]
On 15 January 2014 the Court ruled (ECLI:EU:C:2014:2) that Article 27 of the Charter, whether alone or read with Directive 2002/14, cannot be invoked in a dispute between private parties to disapply conflicting national law.