Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2023:385
Date: 2023-05-04
Language of the case: German
Subject matter: Approximation of laws
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Germany

Summary C-319/22 – 1 
Case C-319/22 
Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice 
Date lodged: 
11 May 2022 
Referring court: 
Landgericht Köln (Germany) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
4 May 2022 
Applicant: 
Gesamtverband Autoteile-Handel eV 
Defendant: 
Scania CV AB 
  
Subject matter of the main proceedings 
Regulation 2018/858 – Article 61 – Scope of the duty of a manufacturer of 
commercial vehicles to present information to independent distributors of motor 
vehicle parts in an easily accessible manner in the form of machine-readable and 
electronically processable datasets – Effect of the General Data Protection 
Regulation on that duty 
Subject matter and legal basis of the request 
Interpretation of EU law, Article 267 TFEU 
Questions referred for a preliminary ruling 
I. Does the requirement in the second sentence of Article 61(1) of Regulation 
(EU) 2018/858, according to which 
EN 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-319/22 
 
2  
‘Information shall be presented in an easily accessible manner in the 
form of machine-readable and electronically processable datasets’, 
cover all repair and maintenance information within the meaning of point 48 
of Article 3 of that regulation, or is that requirement limited to ‘spare parts 
information’ (‘parts of the vehicle […] that can be replaced by spare parts’) 
pursuant to point 6.1 of Annex X to that regulation? 
II. Must the second sentence of Article 61(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/858, 
according to which information is to be presented 
‘in an easily accessible manner in the form of machine-readable and 
electronically processable datasets’, 
and the second subparagraph of Article 61(2), according to which, for 
independent operators other than repairers, 
‘the information shall also be given in a machine-readable format that 
is capable of being electronically processed with commonly available 
information technology tools and software and which allows 
independent operators to carry out the task associated with their 
business in the aftermarket supply chain’, 
be interpreted as meaning that the vehicle manufacturer fulfils its obligations 
in that regard only by 
1. making the information accessible via the internet by means of a 
machine-controlled query via a database interface, which 
provides the possibility to download the results, or is it sufficient 
that the vehicle manufacturer enables only a manual search by a 
human user on-screen on a website and limits the result of the 
query to the visible content of the pages displayed on-screen? 
and 
2. making it possible for all information in the database linked to 
the vehicle manufacturer’s vehicle identification numbers (VINs) 
to be searched for on the basis of those VINs, which are to be 
provided by it in a separate list, and, independently of that 
possibility, 
– also on the basis of other vehicle identification 
characteristics in accordance with the third subparagraph of 
point 6.1 of Annex X to the regulation 
– and on the basis of the terms that the vehicle manufacturer 
otherwise uses for categories (such as categories of 
components, spare parts, repair and maintenance 
GESAMTVERBAND AUTOTEILE-HANDEL 
 
3 
instructions and technical illustrations) and other database 
entries in any combination 
or is it sufficient that the manufacturer offers the search 
exclusively as an individual query based on the VIN of a single, 
specific vehicle without at the same time providing an up-to-date 
list of all its vehicles’ VINs? 
and 
3. providing those datasets in files in a format which is intended to 
make the datasets contained therein directly amenable to (further) 
electronic processing, the description of the dataset concerned 
being specified (in the case of texts and tables), or is the 
possibility to export mere screenshots in any conventional file 
format, such as a PDF file, sufficient for that purpose? 
III. Does Article 61(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/858 constitute, for vehicle 
manufacturers, a legal obligation within the meaning of Article 6(1)(c) of the 
GDPR which justifies the disclosure of VINs or information linked to VINs 
to independent operators as other controllers within the meaning of point 7 
of Article 4 of the GDPR? 
Provisions of European Union law relied on 
Regulation (EU) 2018/858 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
30 May 2018 on the approval and market surveillance of motor vehicles and their 
trailers, and of systems, components and separate technical units intended for such 
vehicles, amending Regulations (EC) No 715/2007 and (EC) No 595/2009 and 
repealing Directive 2007/46/EC, in particular Article 61 and Annex X 
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of 
personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 
95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (‘the GDPR’), in particular 
Articles 4 and 6 
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/1244 of 20 May 2021 amending 
Annex X to Regulation (EU) 2018/858 of the European Parliament and of the 
Council as regards the standardised access to vehicle on-board diagnostics 
information and repair and maintenance information, and the requirements and 
procedures for access to vehicle security information 
Supplementary guidelines on vertical restraints in agreements for the sale and 
repair of motor vehicles and for the distribution of spare parts for motor vehicles 
(2010/C 138/05) (‘Supplementary guidelines to the Motor Vehicle Block 
Exemption Regulation’) 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-319/22 
 
4  
Regulation (EC) No 595/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
18 June 2009 on type-approval of motor vehicles and engines with respect to 
emissions from heavy duty vehicles (Euro VI) and on access to vehicle repair and 
maintenance information and amending Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 and 
Directive 2007/46/EC and repealing Directives 80/1269/EEC, 2005/55/EC and 
2005/78/EC, in particular Article 6 
Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
20 June 2007 on type approval of motor vehicles with respect to emissions from 
light passenger and commercial vehicles (Euro 5 and Euro 6) and on access to 
vehicle repair and maintenance information, in particular Article 6 
Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
20 June 2019 on open data and the re-use of public sector information 
Succinct presentation of the facts and procedure in the main proceedings 
1 The parties are in dispute concerning the form, content and scope of the 
defendant’s obligations to provide vehicle, OBD and vehicle repair and 
maintenance information under Article 61(1) and (2) of Regulation 2018/858. 
2 The applicant’s members account for 80% of the turnover of the motor vehicle 
parts aftermarket in Germany. The defendant is a Swedish manufacturer of 
commercial vehicles, amongst other things. It is one of the largest manufacturers 
of heavy goods vehicles in Europe and has been a wholly owned subsidiary of 
Volkswagen AG since 2015. As a holder of EC type approvals, the defendant is a 
manufacturer within the meaning of point 40 of Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 
2018/858 and also an addressee of Article 61(1) and (2) of Regulation (EU) 
2018/858. 
3 The defendant provides independent operators, such as the applicant’s members, 
with merely manual access to RMI (by which the defendant means vehicle repair, 
maintenance and on-board diagnostics information, and so forth) via a website. 
On that website, a person can search for information on a specific vehicle via a 
search mask by choosing either to enter the last seven digits of the vehicle 
information number (VIN) or to use general vehicle information not relating to an 
individual vehicle (for example, model, engine, year of manufacture, and so 
forth). 
4 However, the defendant does not provide VINs to independent operators. Only 
workshops know the VIN of a specific customer vehicle to be serviced or 
repaired, whereas manufacturers and dealers of spare parts or publishers of 
technical information do not know those individual numbers. However, as the 
defendant itself states, a search based on general criteria, without the VIN being 
entered, produces only imprecise results. 
GESAMTVERBAND AUTOTEILE-HANDEL 
 
5 
5 Moreover, the search result displayed to a human user on the screen after he or she 
has entered a VIN or general search term can only be printed out or stored locally 
on the computer as a PDF file. Consequently, the information content of such a 
printout or the PDF file created in that manner is limited to what can be seen on 
the screen. 
6 The defendant also provides spare parts information to independent operators only 
in that form. The only difference in relation to RMI is that the user is additionally 
given the possibility to save the search result displayed on the website as an XML 
file locally on his or her computer. 
7 Therefore, in order to display all the information for even a single vehicle on the 
screen and to convert the pages into a PDF or XML file, hundreds – if not 
thousands – of pages would have to be generated on the basis of different search 
queries. Consequently, this means that it takes an enormous amount of time to 
collect and retrieve that information. In addition, in the case of RMI, there is no 
possibility of subsequent automated further processing, because the PDF files thus 
offered by the defendant do not contain any information on linked data. 
Succinct presentation of the reasoning in the request for a preliminary ruling 
The first question referred 
8 The parties are in dispute concerning whether the requirement in Article 61(1) and 
(2) of Regulation 2018/858, according to which manufacturers must present the 
information in an easily accessible manner in the form of machine-readable and 
electronically processable datasets, applies to all repair and maintenance 
information within the meaning of point 48 of Article 3 of the regulation or only 
to the information for identifying vehicles and spare parts (spare parts 
information) which is referred to in the third paragraph of point 6.1 of Annex X. 
9 The defendant takes the view that the obligation of manufacturers to present 
machine-readable and electronically processable datasets related only to the spare 
parts information referred to in point 6.1 of Annex X to the regulation. In that 
respect, Article 61(1) of the regulation was a general and unspecific provision 
which was given concrete substance only by Annex X. However, it was only in 
respect of spare parts information that point 6.1 of that annex stipulated the 
electronically processable and machine-readable format. All other categories of 
technical information were covered by point 2.5 of Annex X, which did not 
provide for that form of providing information. 
10 By contrast, the applicant takes the view that the substantive obligations of 
manufacturers arose solely from Article 61(1) and (2) of the regulation, and that 
article was not limited to certain categories of technical information. In 
accordance with Article 61(4) of the regulation, Annex X thereto related only to 
details of the purely technical requirements for the arrangements for access. In so 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-319/22 
 
6  
far as point 6.1 of Annex X contained a more detailed description of the access to 
databases to be provided by vehicle manufacturers in respect of the sub-category 
of spare parts information, it could not follow from that that the corresponding 
requirement in Article 61(1) and (2) was limited to that category of technical 
information referred to separately in the annex. Access to repair and maintenance 
information always concerned access to databases. Point 6.1 of Annex X merely 
contained a clarification, which likewise applied to all other categories. 
11 The view taken by the applicant is supported by the fact that Article 61(1) and (2) 
of the regulation does not contain a limitation to spare parts information and that, 
in accordance with Article 61(4) of the regulation, Annex X thereto is intended 
solely to establish technical requirements for access. Moreover, the objective of 
the regulation to ensure competition in the market for information services, as 
referred to in recitals 50 and 52, applies to all categories of repair and 
maintenance information. On the other hand, Article 61(4) of the regulation refers 
to Annex X in connection with the technical requirements for all categories of 
technical information. The fact that it is only in relation to spare parts information 
that Annex X refers to the provision of information in the form of machine-
readable and electronically processable datasets could also be interpreted as 
meaning that the legislature intended to limit the requirement under Article 61(1) 
and (2) to that category. 
The second question referred 
a) Query via a database interface 
12 The applicant takes the view that independent operators were entitled to access 
repair and maintenance information by way of a machine-controlled query via a 
database interface. The requirement for such an interface, although not expressly 
referred to in Regulation 2018/858, followed from Article 61(1) and (2) thereof, 
according to which information must be made available ‘in an easily accessible 
manner’ so that independent operators (other than repairers) were able to carry out 
the task associated with their business in the aftermarket supply chain. This 
required automated access via an interface. It would not be compatible with the 
requirement of ‘easy accessibility’ if independent operators had to search for the 
required information manually (by way of the entry of certain search terms by a 
human user) and the result of the query was limited to the visible content of a page 
displayed on the screen. The requirement for a database interface also followed 
from the objective of the regulation to ensure effective competition in the market 
for information services. The provisions on the granting of access to repair and 
maintenance information served that purpose. 
13 Against that, the defendant contends that the regulation did not provide for a 
requirement for such a database interface. The only requirement was that the 
information be made available on websites and, as regards spare parts 
information, in a database. The manner in which access to the information was to 
GESAMTVERBAND AUTOTEILE-HANDEL 
 
7 
be granted could not be deduced from the criterion of ‘easy accessibility’. That 
followed from the judgment of the Court of 19 September 2019, Gesamtverband 
Autoteile-Handel (C-527/18, EU:C:2019:762), and from the first recital of 
Regulation 2021/1244, which stated that there were no harmonised criteria as to 
the manner in which information was to be made available. The first subparagraph 
of Article 61(2) of Regulation 2018/858, according to which information must be 
presented in a ‘manner that can be processed with reasonable effort by 
independent operators’, was only a transitional provision until access was 
standardised. However, the recently adopted Regulation 2021/1244 did not 
provide for an interface either, but only for the provision of information via 
websites. 
14 The defendant’s interpretation might be supported by the fact that the regulation 
does not expressly require an interface. The provision might therefore be 
understood as meaning that the form to be taken by the means of access to the 
information is left to the discretion of the vehicle manufacturer. By contrast, the 
applicant’s interpretation might be supported by the fact that, in practice, the 
requirement in Article 61(1) and (2) to provide information ‘in an easily 
accessible manner’ excludes a manual query, in so far as it is a burdensome means 
of access. The spirit and purpose of the provisions on information access, namely 
to ensure effective competition, also suggest the possibility of automated queries 
via a database interface. 
b) Search method 
15 The applicant considers that the limited search options offered by the defendant 
did not comply with the requirement of ‘easy accessibility’ to repair and 
maintenance information in the second sentence of Article 61(1) of Regulation 
2018/858. Independent operators, such as spare parts manufacturers and 
distributors, and publishers of technical information other than repairers did not 
usually have VINs available to them; in any event, they did not have a list of all 
the VINs of the vehicles on the market. They could therefore obtain only 
incomplete information on appropriate repair and maintenance instructions and 
spare parts for those vehicles on the defendant’s website. Accordingly, 
independent operators could not fulfil their task in the aftermarket supply chain. In 
order to fulfil that task, they relied on the possibility to search the manufacturers’ 
databases on the basis also of general vehicle identification characteristics and the 
terms used in the database for categories of components, spare parts and repair 
and maintenance instructions and, where appropriate, other existing entries. 
16 The defendant submits that the prescribed search method via the VIN was a 
necessary consequence of its business model of producing individualised vehicles 
for its customers. Since there were numerous different vehicle configurations, 
only a search via the VIN led to an exact identification of the data relevant to a 
particular vehicle. Such a search method was therefore imperative. Moreover, 
according to the wording of point 6.1 of Annex X, the regulation provided only 
for a search method based on a VIN. 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-319/22 
 
8  
17 The defendant’s interpretation is supported by the fact that the regulation does not 
expressly prescribe a search method based on criteria other than the VIN. By 
contrast, the applicant’s interpretation is supported by the fact that such a limited 
search method could not be compatible with the spirit and purpose of the 
provisions on information access, in so far as publishers of technical information 
and parts manufacturers, for example, also need to search on the basis of other 
criteria in order to be able to carry out the task associated with their business in 
the aftermarket supply chain. 
18 In so far as the applicant complains that the defendant allows, in essence, a search 
method only on the basis of the VIN but wrongly does not provide a list of all its 
vehicles’ VINs, paragraph 66 of the Supplementary guidelines to the Motor 
Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation also supports the view taken by the 
applicant. In accordance with that paragraph, the VIN as such is technical 
information, which, accordingly, must be provided by the manufacturers. 
c) Export format 
19 The defendant takes the view that enabling independent operators to save 
individual screenshots locally as a PDF file satisfied the requirement in the second 
sentence of Article 61(1) of Regulation 2018/858, according to which repair and 
maintenance information must be provided ‘in the form of machine-readable and 
electronically processable datasets’. Those files could be further processed by 
means of standard software. According to the defendant, the concept of machine 
readability did not at the same time entail the requirement of direct amenability to 
automated further processing. 
20 By contrast, the applicant takes the view that the wording ‘machine-readable and 
electronically processable datasets’ did not refer to a PDF intended for human 
perception. ‘Machine readability’ presupposed that the format was designed 
specifically for interpretation by machines. By contrast, a PDF file enabled visual 
representation for a human user only. Since it lacked the structure necessary for 
further automated machine processing, additional intermediate steps were required 
for further processing. 
21 In that respect, the clarification vis-à-vis the previous provision in Article 6(1) of 
Regulation No 595/2009 in conjunction with Article 6(1) of Regulation 
No 715/2007 – information must be provided in the form of machine-readable and 
electronically processable datasets – was intended to bring about an improvement 
for independent operators compared with the previous legal situation. Were the 
provision of a PDF file to be sufficient, information would still have to be 
extracted from those files manually and thus in a laborious manner. Only direct 
and automated electronic further processing allowed for adequate handling of the 
data volumes and therefore for performance of the function in the supply chain. 
22 In that regard, it must be stated that, if the definition of the term ‘machine-
readable format’ in recital 35 of Directive 2019/1024 were also taken as the basis 
GESAMTVERBAND AUTOTEILE-HANDEL 
 
9 
for the interpretation of Article 61(1) and (2) of Regulation 2018/858, the PDF 
format would not meet the requirements referred to therein, at least in respect of 
tables and texts, because PDF files can be further processed only after an 
intermediate step (conversion into another file format). The requirement set out in 
that recital that ‘software applications can easily identify, recognise and extract 
specific data’ also requires, in the case of texts and tables, that the manufacturer 
provide the description of the dataset concerned, because otherwise the underlying 
links and the content of individual data fields cannot be recognised automatically. 
The third question referred 
23 The defendant submits that the GDPR prohibited the disclosure of personal data 
without an appropriate legal basis. Only Article 6(1)(c) of the GDPR, according to 
which the processing of personal data was lawful if it was necessary for 
compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller (in the present case: the 
manufacturer) was subject, entered into consideration as a basis for permissibility. 
However, Article 61(1) of Regulation 2018/858 did not constitute such a legal 
obligation. The provision was not precise enough, the purpose of the processing 
was not clearly defined, and the regulation does not say anything about data 
protection. 
24 The applicant submits that, with respect to manufacturers, VINs did not constitute 
personal data within the meaning of point 1 of Article 4 of the GDPR in so far as, 
as was generally the case, manufacturers did not have a reasonable factual or legal 
possibility to draw conclusions about a natural person on the basis of the VIN. 
That applied in particular to the defendant, since, as a general rule, purchasers of 
commercial vehicles were not natural persons. In so far as the VIN constituted 
personal data in individual cases, the disclosure of the information by the 
defendant would in any event be permitted under Article 6(1)(c) of the GDPR. 
Article 61(1) of Regulation 2018/858 was an appropriate legal basis in that respect 
because it required manufacturers to disclose the information linked to a VIN. 
25 The defendant’s interpretation might be supported by the fact that the regulation 
does not expressly refer to aspects pertaining to data protection. The view taken 
by the applicant might be supported by the fact that VINs do not generally 
constitute personal data for manufacturers, with the result that the GDPR might 
not be applicable in that respect from the outset, and that Article 61(1) of 
Regulation 2018/858 could constitute the necessary ‘legal obligation’ within the 
meaning of Article 6(1)(c) of the GDPR as a basis for data processing under the 
GDPR.