Monitoring References to the Court of Justice of the European Union
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24 case reports
A judge in Erfurt hearing a GDPR claim against Meta alone wants to refer questions to Luxembourg. German procedure says a single judge who meets a question of principle must hand the case to the three-judge chamber — which may then decline to refer. The judge asks whether Article 267 tolerates a rule that lets a court's own colleagues stand between it and the Court.
In its Facebook investigations the Commission demanded every document held by named executives that matched broad search terms, over years, whatever it contained. The General Court found that 'necessary'. Meta's two appeals ask whether necessity is tested term by term or in the round, and what protects the personal information swept up. The Advocate General has proposed dismissing both.
Investigating the Vivendi/Lagardère merger, the Commission ordered Lagardère to collect its employees' personal phones and messages and hand over what matched. The General Court upheld the order in June. The appeal raises the protection of journalistic sources, private life, and the question of who may be made to conduct the search.
In April the Court held that a lender may not charge interest on the fees it has financed. A Warsaw court now asks what that means in practice: which of the Consumer Credit Directive's information duties such a contract breaches, whether the national sanction must follow, and whether a court must raise the point of its own motion.
The European Data Protection Board issued an opinion on 'consent or pay' models that every national regulator will apply to Meta. Meta tried to annul it and claim damages; the General Court threw the case out as inadmissible without a hearing. The appeal asks whether a document that binds no one in law but everyone in practice can be taken to court.
A Dutch foundation is suing four Amazon companies for GDPR damages on behalf of everyone affected, without any of them having asked it to. The Rechtbank Rotterdam asks whether Article 80 of the GDPR — which lets a data subject 'mandate' a body to act — leaves room for the Dutch opt-out class action, and for the extra conditions Dutch law imposes on who may bring it.
The Digital Services Act lets the Commission bill very large platforms for the cost of supervising them, using a methodology it must lay down by delegated act. When it set Meta's and TikTok's fees it counted their users its own way, explained in an annex. The General Court annulled both decisions. The Commission appeals, saying an explanation is not a methodology.
Zalando told the Commission that 83 million people visit its store each month but that only 37% of what they see comes from third-party sellers — so only 31 million are 'recipients' of a platform. The Commission counted all of them. The General Court agreed. Zalando's appeal asks whether exposure to third-party content must be proved or may be presumed.
TikTok met every numerical threshold in the Digital Markets Act and was designated a gatekeeper in the Act's first wave. ByteDance says the presumptions can be rebutted and that the General Court made them impossible to rebut. The first DMA appeal to reach the Court of Justice will say how much a designated company may argue.
When a consumer loan has been sold on, Italian courts let the borrower sue only whoever actually received the money — which means first working out how the two banks arranged the transfer between themselves. A justice of the peace asks whether Article 17 of the Consumer Credit Directive lets the consumer choose to sue either.
After a dawn raid at Red Bull's premises, the Commission carried on examining the copied data in Brussels for seven weeks. Nexans says it must then reimburse the 'additional costs' that continuation causes. The Commission paid the travel and hotels but not the lawyers; the General Court agreed. Red Bull appeals on what 'additional' means.
Brussels I bis gives employees their own jurisdiction rules, which cannot be contracted out of. The Bundesarbeitsgericht asks whether a claim pleaded purely in tort escapes them when the wrong was done inside an employment relationship — or whether the relationship, not the label, decides where the case is heard.
The Court has twice told Bulgaria that mandatory minimum lawyers' fees set by the bar offend Article 101 TFEU. Bulgaria then moved the appointment of court-appointed representatives, and the setting of their fees, to the bar councils. A Blagoevgrad court asks in twenty-five questions whether that is the same restriction in new clothes.
A parent withheld information about who the father of their child is. Sweden asks whether the EU law principle against fraud allows a derived right of residence under Article 20 TFEU to be refused — a right that exists for the child's sake, not the parent's.
Sweden will not grant a derived right of residence under Article 20 TFEU unless the applicant's identity is established. But the right exists to stop a Union citizen child being forced out of the EU, and the child's dependency does not depend on paperwork. The Migration Court of Appeal asks.
Bulgarian prosecutors want voice samples from a suspect and propose to get them by compelling answers to harmless questions, on pain of a fine or criminal consequences. Sofia City Court asks whether the right not to incriminate oneself permits it — and the answer turns on a list in a recital.
A consumer credit agreement is declared wholly invalid, but the money was drawn down and the lender wants it back. From which date does limitation run on that claim — the finding of invalidity, the drawdown, or each instalment of the contract that no longer exists? Sofia City Court asks.
In Estonian consumer insolvency a credit claim already covered by a final judgment counts as uncontested — even where the reasons do not show that any court ever asked whether the lender assessed the borrower's ability to repay. The Riigikohus asks whether finality can carry a question that was never put.
An Estonian order for payment issues on a consumer credit claim without any court checking whether the lender ever assessed the borrower's ability to repay — and enforcement checks nothing either. The consumer has fifteen days to object, on papers that never mention the point. The Riigikohus asks whether that is enough.
The Return Directive defines return to a third country as one the person 'voluntarily decides to return' to. If that word governs the choice of destination, a State cannot send anyone to a safe third country they did not pick. The Dutch Council of State asks.
A court expert produced his report with the help of software. Ten questions follow: is that software a high-risk AI system, how much of the algorithm must the expert explain, and does the AI Act apply at all to a dispute that predates it? A Sofia court asks.
A Polish judge was released from her cases against the rules, and the replacement was drawn by a random-allocation system built by the Ministry of Justice whose source code nobody may inspect. Is a court composed that way still a tribunal established by law? The Warsaw Regional Court asks.
A Slovenian enforcement order based on an authentic document tells the debtor what the claim is and orders payment in the same act. Slovenian courts read that as failing the European Enforcement Order's duty to inform the debtor. The Koper appeal court asks whether that reading breaches Regulation 805/2004.
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…