Tag: E-commerce

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Proposed EU e-commerce rules further reduce choice for consumer contracts.

I have referred repeatedly in the past to an inevitable attraction which some find in harmonising private, incuding contract law, in the Member States. The Common European Sales Law (CESL) proposal is dead, and for good reason. Its demise however has not led to the European Commission leaving the path of harmonisation in contract law. The EC has now selected bits and pieces of the CESL approach which it reckons might pass Member States objections. The proposed ‘fully harmonised’ rules on e-commerce formally do not close the door on party autonomy in the contracts under their scope of application. Yet in forcing regulatory convergence top-down, the aim is to make choice of law for these contracts effectively nugatory.

The EC itself formulates it as follows (COM(2015)634, p.1:

“This initiative is composed of (i) a proposal on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content (COM(2015)634 final), and (ii) a proposal on certain aspects concerning contracts for the online and other distance sales of goods (COM(2015)635 final). These two proposals draw on the experience acquired during the negotiations for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law. In particular, they no longer follow the approach of an optional regime and a comprehensive set of rules. Instead, the proposals contain a targeted and focused set of fully harmonised rules.”

Consequently the same proposal reads in recital 49 ‘Nothing in this Directive should prejudice the application of the rules of private international law, in particular Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EC) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and the Council‘: that is, respectively, Rome I and Brussels I Recast’.

Consequently and gradually, choice of law for digital B2C contracts becomes redundant, for the content of national law converges. Support for this in my view is not rooted in fact (the EC’s data on the need for regulation have not fundamentally changed since its doomed CESL proposal), neither is it a good development even for the consumer. National consumer law is able to adapt, often precisely to the benefit of the consumer, through national Statute and case-law. Turning the EU regulatory tanker is much more cumbersome. The circular economy, recently often debated, is a case in point. Many national authorities point to limitations in contract law (incuding warranty periods and design requirements) as an obstacle to forcing manufacturers, including for consumer goods, to adopt more sustainable manufacturing and distribution models. The EC’s current proposals do no meet those challenges, rather, they obstruct them.

Geert.

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Cheers to that! The CJEU on excise duties, alcohol, packaging and regulatory autonomy in Valev Visnapuu.

Postscript 10 December 2015 For a similar exercise, see Sharpston AG in C-472/14 Canadian Oil.

Less is sometimes more so I shall not attempt to summarise all issues in Case C-198/14 Valev Visnapuu. The case makes for sometimes condensed reading however it perfectly illustrates the way to go about dealing with obstacles to trade put in place for environmental, public health or, as in this case, both reasons.

Mr Visnapuu essentially forum shops Estonia’s lower prices on alcohol by offering Finnish clients home delivery of alcoholic beverages purchased there. No declaration of import is made to Finish customs and excise, thereby circumventing (accusation of course is that this is illegal) a variety of excise duties imposed for public health and environmental reasons, as well as a number of requirements relating to retail licenses and container requirements (essentially a deposit-return system) for beverages.

Confronted with a demand to settle various tax debts, as well as with a suspended prison sentence, Mr Visnapuu turns to EU law as his defence in a criminal proceeding. The CJEU then had to settle a variety of classic trade and environment /public health questions: whether the packaging and packaging waste Directive is exhaustive on the issue of deposit-return system (answer: no and hence the system additionally needs to be assessed vis-a-vis EU primary law: Article 34 ff TFEU or Article 110 TFEU); whether in the context of that Directive excise duties on packaging may be imposed (yes) and packaging integrated into a functioning return system exempt (yes; in the absence of indications that imported systems are less likely to enjoy the exemption); whether the relevant excise duties fall under Article 34 ff TFEU or Article 110 TFEU (answer: it is part of an internal system of taxation hence needs to be judged vis-a-vis Article 110 TFEU); and finally whether the retail licence requirement needs to be judged viz Article 34 or Article 37 TFEU (answer: mixed, given the various requirements at stake). Final judgment on proportionality is down to the Finnish courts.

Readers in need of a tipple would be advised to postpone until after reading the judgment. Again though the case shows that if one keeps a clear head, classic structures of applying EU law go a long way in untangling even complex matters of law and fact.

Geert.

 

 

 

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Not the way the datr cookie crumbles. Belgian courts on soggy jurisdictional grounds in Facebook privacy ruling.

Update 27 June 2017 Before the CJEU Case C-210/16 Wirtschaftsakademie Schleswig-Holstein GmbH v Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein relates to some issues with relevance for the case at hand: in particular the respective powers of various authorities in the Member States with the parent company outside of the EU and one one of the data protection authorities based in the Member State where the company’s establishment is responsible for data processing under the group’s internal division of tasks and responsibilities.

Update 11 July 2016 the Court of Appeal has sided with FB on 29 June. No surprises there! Update 27 June 2017 both initial ruling and the CA’s judgment relate to the provisionary measures. The case is now going through the same courts in ordinary (non-urgent) fashion.

Update 9 February 2016 the French privacy commission has now mirrored the Belgian action

Quite a lot of attention has been going to a Belgian court ordering Facebook to stop collecting data from non-users through the use of so-called datr cookies.  Applicant is Willem Debeuckelaere, the chairman of the Belgian privacy commission, in his capacity as chairman (not, therefore, as a private individual). Our interest here is of course in the court’s finding that it has jurisdiction to hear the case, and that it can apply Belgian law. The judgment is drafted in Dutch – an English (succinct) summary is available here.

Defendants are three parties: Facebook Inc, domiciled in California; Facebook Belgium BVBA, domiciled in Brussels; and Facebook Ireland Ltd., domiciled in Dublin. Facebook Belgium essentially is FB’s public affairs office in the EU. FB Ireland delivers FB services to the EU market.

Directive 95/46 and the Brussels I Recast Regulation operate in a parallel universe. The former dictates jurisdiction and applicable law at the level of the relationship between data protection authorities (DPAs), and data processors (the FBs, Googles etc. of this world). The latter concerns the relation between private individuals and both authorities and processors alike. That parallelism explains, for instance, why Mr Schrems is pursuing the Irish DPA in the Irish Courts, and additionally, FB in the Austrian courts.

Current litigation against FB lies squarely in the context of Directive 95/46. This need not have been the case: Mr Debeuckelaere, aforementioned, could have sued in his personal capacity. If he is not a FB customer, at the least vis-a-vis FB Ireland, this could have easily established jurisdiction on the basis of Article 7(2)’s jurisdiction for tort (here: invasion of privacy): with Belgium as the locus damni. Jurisdiction against FB Inc can not so be established in the basis of Article 7(2) (it does not apply to defendants based outside the EU). If the chairman qq natural person is a FB customer, jurisdiction for the Belgian courts may be based on the consumer contracts provisions of Regulation 1215/2012 – however that would have defeated the purpose of addressing FB’s policy vis-a-vis non-users, which I understand is what datr cookies are about.

Instead, the decision was taken (whether informed or not) to sue purely on the basis of the data protection Directive. This of course requires application of the jurisdictional trigger clarified in Google Spain. German precedent prior to the Google Spain judgment, did not look promising (Schleswig-Holstein v Facebook).

At the least, the Belgian court’s application of the Google Spain test, is debatable: as I note in the previous post,

Article 4(1)(a) of Directive 95/46 does not require the processing of personal data in question to be carried out ‘by’ the establishment concerned itself, but only that it be carried out ‘in the context of the activities’ of the establishment (at 52): that is the case if the latter is intended to promote and sell, in that Member State, advertising space offered by the search engine which serves to make the service offered by that engine profitable (at 55). The very display of personal data on a search results page constitutes processing of such data. Since that display of results is accompanied, on the same page, by the display of advertising linked to the search terms, it is clear that the processing of personal data in question is carried out in the context of the commercial and advertising activity of the controller’s establishment on the territory of a Member State, in this instance Spanish territory (at 57).

Google Spain’s task was providing support to the Google group’s advertising activity which is separate from its search engine service. Per the formula recalled above, this sufficed to trigger jurisdiction for the Spanish DPA. Google Spain is tasked to promote and sell, in that Member State, advertising space offered by the search engine which serves to make the service offered by that engine profitable. The Belgian court accepts jurisdiction on the basis of Facebook Belgium’s activities being ‘inseparably linked’ (at p.15) to Facebook’s activities. With respect, I do not think this was the intention of the CJEU in Google Spain. At the very least, the court’s finding undermines the one stop principle of the data protection Directive, for Belgium’s position viz the EU Institutions means that almost all data processors have some form of public interest representation in Belgium, often indeed taking the form of a BVBA or a VZW (the latter meaning a not for profit association).

The court further justifies (p.16) its jurisdiction on the basis of the measures being provisionary. Provisionary measures fall outside the jurisdictional matrix of the Brussels I (Recast), provided they are indeed provisionary, and provided there is a link between the territory concerned and the provisional measures imposed. How exactly such jurisdiction can be upheld vis-a-vis Facebook Ireland and Facebook Inc, is not clarified by the court.

The court does limit the provisionary measures territorially: FB is only ordered to stop using datr cookies tracking data of non-FB users ‘vis-a-vis internetusers on Belgian territory’, lest these be informed of same.

I mentioned above that the data protection Directive and the Brussels I recast can be quite clearly distinguished at the level of jurisdiction. However findings of courts or public authorities on the basis of either of them, do still face the hurdle of enforcement. That is no different in this case. Recognition and enforcement of the judgment vis-a-vis FB Inc will have to follow a rather complex route, and it is not inconceivable that the US (in particular, the State of California) will refuse recognition on the basis of perceived extraterritorial jurisdictional claims (see here for a pondering of the issues). Even vis-a-vis Facebook Ireland, however, one can imagine enforcement difficulties. Even if these provisionary measures are covered by the Brussels I Recast (which may not be the case given the public character of plaintiff), such measures issued by courts which lack jurisdiction as to the substance of the matter, are not covered by the enforcement Title of the Regulation.

All in all, plenty to be discussed in appeal.

Geert.

 

 

 

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Jurisdiction for libel over the internet. Ontario’s view in Goldhar v Haaretz.

The exam season is over, otherwise Goldhar v Haaretz would have made a great case for comparative analysis. Instead this can now feed into class materials. This is an interlocutory judgment on the basis of lack of jurisdiction and /or abuse of process. Plaintiff lives in Toronto.  He is a billionaire who owns i.a. Maccabi Tel Aviv. (Chelsea’s first opponent in the Champions League. But that’s obviously an aside). Mr Goldhar visits Israel about five or six times per year. Defendant is Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. which publishes Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper (market share about 7%).   It also publishes an English language print edition.  Haaretz is published online in both English and Hebrew.

Haaretz published a very critical article on Mr Goldhar in November 2011. The print version was not published in Canada, in either English or Hebrew. However, Haaretz was made available internationally on its website in Israel in both Hebrew and English – the judgment does not say so specifically however I assume this was both on the .co.il site – even if currently Haaretz’ EN site is available via a .com site.

Information provided by the defendants reveals that there were 216 unique visits to the Article in its online form in Canada. Testimony further showed that indeed a number of people in Canada read the article – this was sufficient for Faieta J to hold that a tort was committed in Ontario and thus a presumptive connecting factor exists. Presumably this means that the court (and /or Canadian /Ontario law with which I am not au fait) view the locus delicti commissi (‘a tort was committed’) as Canada – a conclusion not all that obvious to me (I would have assumed Canada is locus damni only). Per precedent, the absence of a substantial publication of the defamatory material in Canada was not found to be enough to rebut the finding of jurisdiction.

Forum non conveniens was dismissed on a variety of grounds, including applicable law being the law of Ontario (again Ontario is identified as the locus delicti commissi: at 48). Plaintiff will have to cover costs for the appearance, in Canada, of defendants’ witnesses. Importantly, plaintiff will also only be able to seek damages for reputational harm suffered within Canada.

I can see this case (and the follow-up in substance) doing the rounds of conflicts classes.

Geert.

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Choice of court on the web . The ECJ on ‘click-wrap’ in El Majdoub v CarsOnTheWeb.

I have delayed reporting on judgment in Case C-322/14, Jaouad El Majdoub v CarsOnTheWeb.Deutschland GmbH, held 21 May 2015, for exam reasons. I reported earlier on the due diligence required of businesses when establishing choice of court through electronic means. The ECJ has now also had its say, in a case concerning a B2B contract for the purchase of a car. [Choice of court in a B2C context tends to be covered by the consumer contracts title hence is not at stake here. [Mark Young and Philipe Bradley-Schmieg review the relevance of the case for B2C contracts here].

Choice of court allegedly had been made in favour of the courts at Leuven, Belgium, in the vicinity of which the seller’s parent company has its head office. The buyer however sued in Germany, the domicile of the German daughter company (and of the buyer, a car dealer). Buyer claims that the  contract at any rate was with the daughter company, not the mother company, and that choice of court had not been validly made. He submits that the webpage containing the general terms and conditions of sale of the defendant in the main proceedings does not open automatically upon registration and upon every individual sale. Instead, a box with the indication ‘click here to open the conditions of delivery and payment in a new window’ must be clicked on (known as ‘click wrapping’).

In essence therefore the question is whether the requirements of Article 23(2) of the Brussels I Regulation (now Article 25(2)) are met only if the window containing those general conditions opens automatically, and upon every sale. That Article was added at the adoption of the  Brussels I Regulation, precisely to address the then newish trend of agreeing to choice of court (and indeed choice of law; but that is not covered by Brussels I) through electronic means.

The provisions on forum clauses in the 1968 Brussels Convention, Brussels I and the recast are drafted in a way ‘not to impede commercial practice, yet at the same time to cancel out the effects of clauses in contracts which might go unread’ (Report Jenard) or otherwise ‘unnoticed’ (the ECJ in the core case Colzani). the Report Jenard also notes that in order to ensure legal certainty, the formal requirements applicable to agreements conferring jurisdiction should be expressly prescribed, but that ‘excessive formality which is incompatible with commercial practice‘ should be avoided.

The first sentence of Article 25(1) discusses the parties ‘agreement’ as to choice of court. (It leaves a large array of national law issues untouched, such as consideration, mandate, 3rd party effect. etc. On some of those issues, see also Refcomp). The remainder of Article 25(1) concerns the possible formats in which agreement is testified. Article 25(2) (and 23(2) before it) accompanies Article 25(1) a’s option of having the agreement put down ‘in writing’.

In line with the requirement not to be excessively formalistic, the ECJ essentially requires that parties be duly diligent when agreeing to choice of court. If click-wrapping makes it possible to print and save the text of those terms and conditions before the conclusion of the contract, then it can be considered a communication by electronic means which provides a durable record of the agreement.

Note that the Court does not hold on whether the agreement is actually reached between the parties: only that click-wrap may provide a durable record of such agreement, where it exists. (One could imagine choice of court having been protested, for instance, or other issues of national law having an impact on the actual existence of the agreement. and one can certainly imagine a continuing discussion on what contract was concluded between what parties in the case at issue].

Geert.

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Rolex v Blomqvist. ECJ confirms irrelevance of ‘focus and target’ or ‘direction’ in intellectual property cases.

After its withholding of mere accessibility of a site as a jurisdictional trigger for copyright infringement in Pinckney, the ECJ has now accepted that the mere acquisition of a good by a person domiciled in an EU Member State, suffices to trigger the application of the EU Customs Regulation’s provisions on counterfeit and pirated goods. It is not necessary, in addition, for the goods at issue to have been the subject, prior to the sale, of an offer for sale or advertising targeting consumers of that State.

In Case C-98/13 Martin Blomqvist v Rolex Mr Blomqvist, a resident of Denmark, ordered a watch described as a Rolex from a Chinese on-line shop. The order was placed and paid for through the English website of the seller. The seller sent the watch from Hong Kong by post. The parcel was inspected by the customs authorities on arrival in Denmark. They suspended the customs clearance of the watch, suspecting that it was a counterfeit version of the original Rolex watch and that there had been a breach of copyright over the model concerned. In accordance with the procedure laid down by the customs regulation, Rolex then requested the continued suspension of customs clearance, having established that the watch was in fact counterfeit, and asked Mr Blomqvist to consent to the destruction of the watch by the customs authorities. Mr Blomqvist refused to consent to the destruction of the watch, contending that he had purchased it legally. Is there in the present case any distribution to the public, within the meaning of the copyright directive, and any use in the course of trade, within the meaning of the trade mark directive and the trade mark regulation?

The ECJ re-iterated earlier case-law (in particular L’Oreal /E-bay) that the mere fact that a website is accessible from the territory covered by the trade mark is not a sufficient basis for concluding that the offers for sale displayed there are targeted at consumers in the EU. However proof that the goods are intended to be put on sale in the European Union, is being provided, inter alia, where it turns out that the goods have been sold to a customer in the European Union, such as clearly in the case at issue.

That sales to the EU have taken place is enough. Proof that EU consumers were actually targeted is not required – at least not with a view to triggering intellectual property protection (cf consumer protection under i.a. the jurisdiction Regulation).

In the view of the EU of course this is not an ‘extraterritorial’ application of EU law: the territorial link is firmly established through the customer’s domicile.

Geert.

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The High Court accepts jurisdiction in ‘Safari users’ [Vidal-Hall et al v Google] case. European privacy rules bolstered?

Update October 2018 upon revisting the issues I can now add that the claim was settled before the Supreme Court heard the case.

[Postscript 26 august 2015: the UKSC granted Google leave to appeal on 28 July 2015]

[Postscript 27 March 2015: today the Court of Appeal confirmed the High Court ruling. Emma Cross has immediate analysis here.]

In Vidal-Hall et al v Google Inc, the High Court assessed its jurisdiction against Google Inc and found no reason to apply forum non conveniens. Google UK was not involved, the Jurisdiction Regulation (44/2001) does not apply.

Claimants allege that Google misused their private information, and acted in breach of confidence, and/or in breach of the statutory duties under the Data Protection Act 1998 s.4(4) (“the DPA”), by tracking and collating, without the claimants’ consent or knowledge, information relating to the claimants’ internet usage on the Apple Safari internet browser. Applying the Spiliada criteria, Tugendhat J first of all dismissed the relevance of the location of documents, serving Google a dose of its own medicine: ‘In any event, in the world in which Google Inc operates, the location of documents is likely to be insignificant, since they are likely to be in electronic form, accessible from anywhere in the world. ‘ ‘By contrast, the focus of attention is likely to be on the damage that each Claimant claims to have suffered. They are individuals resident here, for whom bringing proceedings in the USA would be likely to be very burdensome (Google Inc has not suggested which state would be the appropriate one). The issues of English law raised by Google Inc are complicated ones, and in a developing area. If an American court had to resolve these issues no doubt it could do so, aided by expert evidence on English law. But that would be costly for all parties, and it would be better for all parties that the issues of English law be resolved by an English court, with the usual right of appeal, which would not be available if the issues were resolved by an American court deciding English law as a question of fact.’ (at 132-233)

Forum non conveniens dismissed – the case can go ahead.

The judgment, in reviewing the prima facie case on the merits, also bolsters the existence of a tort of ‘misuse of private information’ and surely adds to the growing authority of European-based data protection rules.

(On an aside, note the rather delightful observation by Tugendhat J (at 56) that ‘civil law jurisdictions have managed to develop civil liability for breaches of an obligation of confidence in relation to personal information without the benefit of a historical equivalent of the law of equity.’).

Geert.

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Prove it if you can? E-commerce and jurisdiction: the ECJ further completes the jigsaw in Emrek

As tweeted last week, the Court of Justice has clarified the scope of the consumer title of the Brussels-I Regulation in Case C-218/12 Emrek. In Spicheren, a town close to the German border, Mr Sabranovic sells second-hand motor vehicles. He had an internet site on which French telephone numbers and a German mobile telephone number were mentioned, together with the respective international codes. Mr Emrek, who resides in Saarbrücken (Germany) and who learned through acquaintances (not via the internet) of Mr Sabronovic’s business went there and purchased a second-hand motor vehicle.

Subsequently, Mr Emrek made claims against Mr Sabronovic under the warranty before the Amtsgericht (District Court) Saarbrücken. Mr Emrek took the view that, under Regulation No 44/2001, that court had jurisdiction to hear such an action. It was clear from the set-up of Mr Sabranovic’s website that his commercial activity was also directed to Germany. However, it was also clear that the contract that had been concluded was not the result of that direction: Mr Emrek had heard from the business by word of mouth, not the internet.  Must there be a causal link between the means employed to direct the commercial activity to the Member State of the consumer’s domicile, namely the internet site, and the conclusion of the contract with the consumer?

The Court held that requiring such causal link would raise questions of burden of proof. Difficulties related to proof of the existence of a causal link would tend to dissuade consumers from bringing actions before the courts of their domicile and would therefore weaken the protection of consumers pursued by the regulation. However if and when that causal link is in fact established, it would constitute strong evidence which may be taken into consideration by the national court to determine whether the activity of the professional trader is ‘directed at’ the Member State of the consumer’s domicile.

The Court’s judgment could have certainly swayed differently. There are – among other textual – reasons for arguing pro requiring a causal link between the activities directed at the consumer’s place of domicile, and the eventual contract. The ECJ pushes out the consumer protection boat yet a little further.

I can’t quite think of a pun to end this posting. I’ll just end it. Geert.

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Jurisdiction in copyright infringement with the involvement of the internet – The ECJ in Pinckney is satisfied with accessibility

[postscript 4 February 2014: the Cour de Cassation held on 22 January 2014, following the ECJ’s lead.]

I reported earlier on the AG’s Opinion in Pinckney. The ECJ held this morning.  The questions were held admissible (see my fear that the Court might side with the AG’s suggestion of the opposite).

Pro memoria: the case concerns an alleged infringement of a copyright which is protected by the Member State of the court seised (France), that court questioning its jurisdiction to hear an action to establish liability brought by the author (who lives in France) of a work against a company established in another Member State (Austria), which has in the latter State (Austria) reproduced that work on a material support which is subsequently marketed by companies (Crusoe and Elegy) established in a third Member State (the UK) through an internet site which is also accessible in the Member State of the court seised (France).

The Court of Appeal at Toulouse) held that the Tribunal de grande instance de Toulouse lacked jurisdiction on the ground that the defendant is domiciled in Austria and the place where the damage occurred cannot be situated in France, and that there was no need to examine the liability of Mediatech and Crusoe or Elegy in the absence of any allegation of collusion between them and Mediatech. The Cour de Cassation referred to the ECJ.

The ECJ concisely sets out its case-law in intellectual property rights vs personality rights infringements – I will not repeat the exercise here.  It emphasises the (in my view conceptually wrong) link between applicable law and jurisdiction in the case of special jurisdictional rules. Unlike the AG, however, the court does not withhold ‘focus and target’ of the website as a criterion for jurisdiction. ‘(T)he possibility of obtaining a reproduction of the work to which the rights relied on by the defendant pertain from an internet site accessible within the jurisdiction of the court seised‘ (emphasis added) suffices.  However if locus damni is the only jurisdictional ground for that Member State, that court, per the Shevill rule, only has jurisdiction to adjudicate on the damage caused in that Member State.

No doubt the IP community will chew a bit more on the judgment. The patchwork of litigation possibilities in IP infringement cases remains a challenge.

Geert.

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Football Dataco: CJEU confirms ‘intended target of information’ criterion as jurisdictional trigger in an internet context

[postscript 5 February 2014: L’Oreal and e-bay settled their dispute (referred to below) out off court in January 2014. Settlement is undisclosed.]

Mere accessibility of data does not suffice to grant jurisdiction under the Database Directive. In Football Dataco, the  CJEU has confirmed the ‘intended target of information’ criterion as a jurisdictional trigger in an internet context.

The Football Dataco judgment has its most immediate impact in the Intellectual property area, however the judgment has generally confirmed the ‘intended target’ criterion as a trigger for jurisdiction in an internet context.

In the trademark sector, the L’Oréal /Ebay litigation led to the CJEU instructing that where goods located in a third State, which bear a trade mark registered in an EU Member State or a Community trade mark and have not previously been put on the market in the EEA or, in the case of a Community trade mark, in the EU, (i) are sold by an economic operator on an online marketplace without the consent of the trade mark proprietor to a consumer located in the territory covered by the trade mark or (ii) are offered for sale or advertised on such a marketplace targeted at consumers located in that territory, the trade mark proprietor may prevent that sale, offer for sale or advertising by virtue of the rules set out in relevant EU legislation. It is the task of the national courts to assess on a case-by-case basis whether relevant factors exist, on the basis of which it may be concluded that an offer for sale or an advertisement displayed on an online marketplace accessible from the territory covered by the trade mark is ‘targeted at’ consumers in that territory: When the offer for sale is accompanied by details of the geographic areas to which the seller is willing to dispatch the product, that type of detail is of particular importance in the said assessment:

The CJEU itself noted in para 64 of its L’Oréal judgment the analogy with the Pammer and Alpenhof litigation [the main judgment for the application of the Jurisdiction Regulation in an internet context].

‘Intended target of information’ as a criterion of applicability was now also confirmed as the criterion for application of the Database Directive, Directive 96/9 in Case C-173/11 Football Dataco (judgment of 18 October 2012): ‘Article 7 of Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases must be interpreted as meaning that the sending by one person, by means of a web server located in Member State A, of data previously uploaded by that person from a database protected by the sui generis right under that directive to the computer of another person located in Member State B, at that person’s request, for the purpose of storage in that computer’s memory and display on its screen, constitutes an act of ‘re-utilisation’ of the data by the person sending it. That act takes place, at least, in Member State B, where there is evidence from which it may be concluded that the act discloses an intention on the part of the person performing the act to target members of the public in Member State B, which is for the national court to assess.’

In other words, mere accessibility of data does not suffice to grant jurisdiction under the Database Directive.

Geert.

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