Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2024:185
Date: 2024-02-29
Language of the case: Bulgarian
Court formation: Tenth Chamber
Subject matter: Approximation of laws
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Bulgaria

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Translation C-466/22 – 1 
Case C-466/22 
Request for a preliminary ruling 
Date lodged: 
12 July 2022 
Referring court: 
Administrativen sad – Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
22 June 2022 
Applicant in the main proceedings: 
V.B. Trade OOD 
Defendant in the main proceedings: 
Direktor na Direktsia ‘Obzhalvane i danachno-osiguritelna 
praktika’ – Veliko Tarnovo 
  
O R D E R 
[…] 
Town of Veliko Tarnovo, 22 June 2022 
Administrativen sad – Veliko Tarnovo (Administrative Court, Veliko Tarnovo) 
[…] 
[…] having regard to the following: 
The proceedings in the present case concern an action brought by the commercial 
company [V.B.] Trade OOD, having its registered office and administrative 
address [in] the town of Veliko Tarnovo […], against a notification of tax liability 
issued by the revenue authorities at the Teritorialna direktsia na Natsionalna 
agentsia za prihodite – Veliko Tarnovo (Veliko Tarnovo Regional Directorate of 
EN 
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the National Revenue Agency) on […] 13 January 2021, which was confirmed – 
in the part challenged before the court – by Decision No 49 of the Director na 
Direktsia ‘Obzhalvane i danachno-osiguritelna praktika’ – Veliko Tarnovo 
(Director of the ‘Appeals and Tax and Social Insurance Practice’ Directorate of 
Veliko Tarnovo) of 17 May 2021. That notification established corporation tax 
liability in the amount of BGN 682 863.40 and interest in the amount of 
BGN 192 770.62. One of the main complaints against that notification of tax 
liability, which was confirmed by the Director of the ‘Appeals and Tax and Social 
Insurance Practice’ Directorate of Veliko Tarnovo, is that it is ineffective (invalid) 
because its issuers had not duly signed it by means of a qualified electronic 
signature. 
With regard to the ruling on the merits in the pending dispute, the present court 
finds that the correct resolution of the dispute requires a binding interpretation of 
provisions of EU law, for the purposes of which it considers that it is necessary to 
refer a question, of its own motion, to the Court of Justice of the European Union 
for a preliminary ruling pursuant to the third paragraph of Article 267 of the 
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. 
І. Parties to the case 
1. The applicant in the case is the commercial company V.B. Trade OOD, 
having its registered office and administrative address [in] the town of Veliko 
Tarnovo […]; that company is subject to corporation tax. 
2. The defendant in the case is the Director of the ‘Appeals and Tax and Social 
Insurance Practice’ Directorate of Veliko Tarnovo, which is a mandatory 
administrative body in appeals against legal acts such as that at issue in the present 
case and, under national law, appears as a defendant in cases concerning the 
legality of notifications of tax liability issued by authorities of the revenue 
administration. 
II. Subject matter of the proceedings 
3. A notification of tax liability issued by the revenue authorities at the Veliko 
Tarnovo Regional Directorate of the National Revenue Agency [on] 13 January 
2021, which was confirmed – in the part challenged before the present court – by 
Decision No 49 of the Director of the ‘Appeals and Tax and Social Insurance 
Practice’ Directorate of Veliko Tarnovo of 17 May 2021. 
III. Facts 
4. It is apparent from the case file that the tax audit procedure was initiated by 
the issuance of the tax audit order […] of 24 June 2020, served electronically and 
amended by the tax audit order […] of 30 September 2020 and then by the tax 
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audit order […] of 29 October 2020. A tax audit report of […] 15 December 2020 
was issued, after which the legal act at issue before the present court was also 
issued. 
5. All the above legal acts are electronic documents signed by their issuers by 
means of qualified electronic signatures. 
6. Those qualified electronic signatures are claimed to have been affixed by the 
persons NP, KS, LM and ED, all of whom have the capacity of revenue 
authorities within the meaning of national law. 
7. It is common ground in the present case that, according to the public register 
of the trust service provider B-Trust, NP had a valid qualified electronic signature 
for the period from 5 June 2020 to 5 June 2021, during which period the tax audit 
order […] of 24 June 2020, the tax audit order […] of 29 October 2020 and the 
contested notification of tax liability were issued and signed by means of such a 
signature. 
8. It is also common ground that, according to that register, KS had a qualified 
electronic signature for the period from 5 June 2020 to 5 June 2021, during which 
period the tax audit order […] of 30 September 2020 was issued. 
9. It is common ground in the present case that, according to that register, LM 
had a qualified electronic signature for the period from 3 January 2020 to 
2 January 2021, during which period the tax audit report […] of 15 December 
2020 was signed. 
10. Lastly, it is common ground in the present case that, according to the 
register of the trust service provider, ED had a qualified electronic signature for 
the period from 3 January 2020 to 2 January 2021, during which period the 
notification of tax liability was signed by her as issuer. 
11. In the course of the present proceedings, the applicant company, through its 
representative, challenged all the electronic documents containing qualified 
electronic signatures, including the orders in the tax audit procedure and the 
notification of tax liability. 
12. In view of that challenge, the company’s authorised representative requested 
that the court admit and hear a court-commissioned computing expert. The experts 
were given the following tasks: (a) [to clarify] which persons signed the electronic 
documents, indicating their full job descriptions and places of work; (b) to identify 
the specific field of the documents in which the signatures are integrated; (c) [to 
clarify] whether the signatories held valid certificates for qualified electronic 
signatures at the time of issuance of the contested documents and how this is 
evidenced; (d) [to clarify] what the generally accepted standard is following 
conversion and to explain, in application of that standard, the meaning of the 
alphanumeric combinations contained in the signature fields of the paper 
reproductions of the contested documents in the present case; (e) [to clarify] by 
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means of whose root certificate the contested electronic signatures were issued; (f) 
[to clarify] whether the paper media on which the trust service provider entered 
the original personal identification number of the electronic documents were 
created in ‘private premises’, that is to say whether or not they were sealed in 
series in an opaque envelope in the absence of persons; (f) [to clarify] whether all 
the requisite specific data on the identity of the natural persons specified as the 
originators of electronic signatures are available; [to clarify] in which language 
those data are entered, whether a personal identification number is present, 
whether they are clearly linked to the originator of the signature and whether it is 
possible uniquely to identify the originator of the data on the basis of the data; [to 
clarify] whether those data provide a level of assurance – within the meaning of 
Article 24(1) of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of 
the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for 
electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 
1999/93/EC – which is equivalent in terms of reliability to physical presence and 
has been confirmed by a conformity assessment body; (h) [to clarify], in relation 
to the answer to the above question, whether the requirements for electronic 
identification of the originators of electronic signatures within the meaning of the 
abovementioned regulation have been complied with, in particular with regard to 
the requirements of Article 11(1) [of the regulation and] points (c) and (d) of 
Annex [I], in conjunction with Article 12[(1)] of that regulation, in conjunction 
with Article 7(f) and Article 9(1) thereof; (g) [to determine] whether the date and 
time of signature is established for the documents at issue and which date and time 
applies to each document; [to determine] whether an electronic time stamp is 
included or whether the generated date and time are taken from the local computer 
system or the ‘Kontrol’ (‘Control’) information system maintained by the National 
Revenue Agency; (i) [to determine] whether the issuer of the electronic signatures 
carried out a qualified validation within the meaning of Articles 32 and 33 of that 
regulation on the date of signature of each of the contested documents, and what 
the result of that validation was; in particular, whether the requirements of 
Article 32(1)(a) of that regulation, in [conjunction] with points (b), (e), (f), (h) and 
(i) of Annex I to the regulation, and Article 32(1)(d) and (h) of the regulation, in 
conjunction with Article 26(d) thereof, are met; (j) [to determine] whether it is 
possible to perform qualified validation, that is to say, to verify the validity of the 
contested signatures in an automated and reliable manner, by means of the 
systems of other qualified electronic trust service providers and, taking into 
account the answers to those questions, [to clarify], lastly, whether all the 
technical requirements are met in order to draw a reasoned conclusion as to the 
existence of qualified electronic signatures on the contested documents. 
IV. Relevant legal provisions 
National law: 
12. The provisions of the Danachno-osiguritelen protsesualen kodeks (Tax and 
Social Security Procedure Code; ‘the DOPK’), the Grazhdanski protsesualen 
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kodeks (Code of Civil Procedure; ‘the GPK’) and the Zakon za elektronnia 
dokument i elektronnite udostoveritelni uslugi (Law on electronic documents and 
electronic trust services; ‘the ZEDEUU’) are applicable in the present case. 
А) Point 2 of Article 113(1) of the DOPK provides as follows: ‘the tax audit 
order shall specify the revenue authorities and the head of the audit’. 
B) Point 10 of Article 117(2) of the DOPK provides as follows: ‘The tax audit 
report must contain the signatures of the revenue authorities who prepared the 
report.’ 
C) Point 8 of Article 120(1) of the DOPK provides as follows: ‘The notification 
of tax liability shall be issued in writing and shall contain the signatures of the 
revenue authorities that issued it.’ 
D) Paragraph 2 of the Additional provisions for the DOPK provides as follows: 
‘The provisions of the Administrativnoprotsesualen kodeks [(Code of 
Administrative Procedure; ‘the APK’)] and the [GPK] shall apply to cases not 
regulated in this Code.’ 
E) Article 184(2) of the GPK provides as follows: ‘If the court does not have 
technical means and specialists enabling the reproduction of the electronic 
document and the proper verification of the electronic signature in the courtroom 
in the presence of the parties appearing, electronic copies of the document shall 
also be provided to all parties to the proceedings. In that case, the authenticity of 
the electronic document may be challenged at the subsequent hearing.’ 
F) Article 193(1) of the GPK provides as follows: ‘The interested party may 
challenge the authenticity of a document at the latest in the reply to the procedural 
document by way of which it was produced. Where the document is produced at 
the hearing, the challenge may be made by the end of the hearing at the latest.’ 
G) Article 2(1) of the ZEDEUU provides as follows: ‘An electronic declaration 
is a verbal declaration made in digital form by means of a generally accepted 
standard for the conversion, reading and representation of information.’ 
H) Article 4 of the ZEDEUU provides as follows: ‘The author of the electronic 
declaration is the natural person specified in the declaration as the person who 
made it. The owner of the electronic declaration is the person in whose name the 
electronic declaration is made.’ 
I) Article 13(1) of the ZEDEUU provides as follows: ‘An electronic signature 
is an electronic signature within the meaning of point 10 of Article 3 of 
Regulation (EU) No 910/2014’. 
J) Article 13(3) of the ZEDEUU provides as follows: ‘A qualified electronic 
signature is an electronic signature within the meaning of point 12 of Article 3 of 
Regulation (EU) No 910/2014’. 
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Relevant EU Law 
13. Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the 
Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for 
electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC 
(‘the Regulation’). 
А) Recital 22 of the Regulation reads as follows: ‘In order to contribute to their 
general cross-border use, it should be possible to use trust services as evidence in 
legal proceedings in all Member States. It is for the national law to define the legal 
effect of trust services, except if otherwise provided in this Regulation.’ 
B) The first sentence of recital 23 of the Regulation reads as follows: ‘To the 
extent that this Regulation creates an obligation to recognise a trust service, such a 
trust service may only be rejected if the addressee of the obligation is unable to 
read or verify it due to technical reasons lying outside the immediate control of the 
addressee.’ 
C) Recital 49 of the Regulation reads as follows: ‘This Regulation should 
establish the principle that an electronic signature should not be denied legal effect 
on the grounds that it is in an electronic form or that it does not meet the 
requirements of the qualified electronic signature. However, it is for national law 
to define the legal effect of electronic signatures, except for the requirements 
provided for in this Regulation according to which a qualified electronic signature 
should have the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten signature.’ 
D) Recital 51 of the Regulation reads as follows: ‘It should be possible for the 
signatory to entrust qualified electronic signature creation devices to the care of a 
third party, provided that appropriate mechanisms and procedures are 
implemented to ensure that the signatory has sole control over the use of his 
electronic signature creation data, and the qualified electronic signature 
requirements are met by the use of the device.’ 
E) Recital 57 of the Regulation reads as follows: ‘To ensure legal certainty as 
regards the validity of the signature, it is essential to specify the components of a 
qualified electronic signature, which should be assessed by the relying party 
carrying out the validation. Moreover, specifying the requirements for qualified 
trust service providers that can provide a qualified validation service to relying 
parties unwilling or unable to carry out the validation of qualified electronic 
signatures themselves, should stimulate the private and public sector to invest in 
such services. Both elements should make qualified electronic signature validation 
easy and convenient for all parties at Union level.’ 
F) According to [point] 9 of Article 3 of the Regulation, ‘“signatory” means a 
natural person who creates an electronic signature’. 
G) According to [point] 10 of Article 3 of the Regulation, ‘“electronic 
signature” means data in electronic form which is attached to or logically 
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associated with other data in electronic form and which is used by the signatory to 
sign’. 
H) According to [point 11] of Article 3 of the Regulation, ‘“advanced electronic 
signature” means an electronic signature which meets the requirements set out in 
Article 26’. 
I) According to [point 12] of Article 3 of the Regulation, ‘“qualified electronic 
signature” means an advanced electronic signature that is created by a qualified 
electronic signature creation device, and which is based on a qualified certificate 
for electronic signatures’. 
J) According to [point 41] of Article [3] of the Regulation, ‘“validation’ means 
the process of verifying and confirming that an electronic signature or a seal is 
valid. 
K) Article 25(1) of the Regulation provides as follows: ‘An electronic signature 
shall not be denied legal effect and admissibility as evidence in legal proceedings 
solely on the grounds that it is in an electronic form or that it does not meet the 
requirements for qualified electronic signatures.’ 
L) According to Article 25(2) of the Regulation, ‘a “qualified electronic 
signature” shall have the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten signature’. 
V. Case-law 
14. National case-law 
There is no relevant national case-law on the questions raised before the 
adjudicating court concerning the interpretation of the provisions of the 
Regulation. 
15. Case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union 
The adjudicating court could not find any relevant case-law on the application of 
the above provisions of the Regulation. 
VI. Arguments of the parties 
16. The applicant has not put forward any specific procedural position or 
specific argument in relation to the procedural issue on the basis of which the 
adjudicating court requires an interpretation of provisions of EU law. In essence, it 
implicitly follows from the applicant’s procedural conduct that the provisions of 
Article 25(1) and (2) of the Regulation do not constitute a procedural bar to the 
application of national procedural law under which evidence which is otherwise 
admissible under a provision of national law and EU law can be challenged as not 
being credible or as being spurious, and so forth. 
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17. The defendant, through his representative, argued before the court that the 
challenge to the status of qualified electronic signature is inadmissible under the 
provisions of the Regulation (see the statement he made at the hearing held in 
open court on 8 November 2021). In that connection, he also challenges the 
admissibility of the evidentiary means of disproving the ‘qualified’ status of the 
electronic signatures affixed to the electronic documents, since, in Bulgaria, as a 
Member State of the European Union, a set of tools has been developed from a 
technical point of view which allows for the validation of any signed electronic 
document, including by means of a qualified electronic signature. 
VII. Grounds for the request for a preliminary ruling 
18. In this specific case, the adjudicating court does not require an interpretation 
of provisions of EU law in relation to the main substantive question at issue in the 
present case. However, in order to apply substantive law correctly, the court must 
be certain of the permissible procedural tools for determining the facts and 
circumstances which, taken together, lead to the establishment of the objective 
truth. It is beyond dispute that one such relevant fact is also the duly effected 
signature of the electronic documents, which, from a legal and technical point of 
view, include the tax audit orders and their amendment, the tax audit report and 
the notice of tax liability at issue. As already stated above, the revenue 
administration submits that those electronic documents were signed by means of 
qualified electronic signatures within the meaning of [point] 12 of Article 3 of the 
Regulation. In the course of the court proceedings, the applicant sought, by its 
request for an expert’s report, to refute the signatures as having that status, as was 
clarified by way of the questions put to the experts. Indeed, the expert’s report was 
requested in connection with the challenge to authenticity, which, according to the 
applicant’s understanding, depends on the technical aspects which define the 
signature on the abovementioned documents as a qualified electronic signature. 
That understanding is based on the mandatory but – in the view of the 
adjudicating court – non-restrictive provision of Article 25(2) of the Regulation. 
Therefore, if that effect is disproven, there is no authentically signed electronic 
document under national law. Such a lack of authenticity would imply the 
existence of serious formal defects in the documents, which include the 
notification of tax liability, and such a defect may lead to the invalidity of that 
document under national law. 
19. On the other hand, it follows from the structure of the provision of 
Article 25(1) of the Regulation that that provision is procedural in nature and 
regulates the admissibility of the electronic signature and its legal value from an 
evidential point of view. Does the prohibition on denying that legal effect and 
admissibility as evidence override – and, if so, to what extent – the principle of 
procedural autonomy, which allows the various procedural systems of the 
individual Member States to make it possible to refute evidential force and value 
by means of a procedure governed by their national law, and to what extent does 
that provision affect the realisation of that principle? 
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20. In that connection, the procedural possibility for the national court to refute 
authorship of a qualified electronic signature is of significant procedural 
importance. The adjudicating court takes the view that it clearly follows from a 
literal interpretation of the provision of Article 21(1) of the Regulation, in logical 
conjunction with recital 22 thereof, that a document signed by means of a 
qualified electronic signature (and not only those signed by means of a qualified 
electronic signature) constitutes, for all types of legal proceedings, an admissible 
document which the courts of the Member States must take into account, and, in 
that respect, the institution of Article 25(1) of the Regulation overrides and 
disavows the general principle of procedural autonomy and thus the procedural 
rules that the Member States have introduced in the field of evidence by 
formulating the admissible means and methods of proof. 
21. However, going beyond what is stated in the preceding paragraph, it should 
be noted that it is not clear to the adjudicating court, from the mere wording of 
that provision, what the precise meaning and legal parameters are of the phrase 
‘legal effect [of an electronic signature] as evidence’ contained in the provision of 
Article 25(1) of the Regulation. On the one hand, the phrase ‘legal effect’ of such 
an electronic signature may be understood as the evidential value or force of the 
signature – including the handwritten signature of the person concerned – as 
recognised by the national legal system of each Member State, whereby the 
qualified electronic signature indicates the author of the document concerned; that 
consideration follows from the second sentence of recital 49 of the Regulation. On 
the other hand, the Regulation, in Article 25(2) thereof, merely equates the legal 
effect of the qualified electronic signature with the legal effect of a handwritten 
signature. 
22. Does the phrase ‘legal effect [of an electronic signature] as evidence’ mean 
that there is a uniform Community procedural instrument requiring the courts of 
the Member States to accept that, where the requirements of [points] 10, 11 and 12 
of Article 3 of the Regulation are formally met or are not in any dispute, the 
claimed authorship and the existence of such a signature must be presumed a 
priori to be established beyond doubt, or that, where the requirements of those 
provisions are met, the courts must a priori find only that the qualified electronic 
signature has evidential value equivalent to that of a handwritten signature, but 
only within the limits of what is provided for in the national legal/procedural 
regime? 
23. Furthermore, there are doubts as to the real meaning and underlying legal 
logic of the phrase ‘shall not be denied … in legal proceedings’ contained in the 
provision of Article 25(1) of the Regulation. Does that restriction imply an 
absolute prohibition for all national courts to use the procedural possibilities 
provided for in their legal systems to deny evidential value to the legal effect of 
the electronic signature provided for in the Regulation, or is the prohibition 
relative, with the result that that provision makes it possible to refute – in 
accordance also with the relevant national procedural instruments –the 
requirements contained in the provisions of [points] 10 to 12 of Article 3 as being 
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met, and thereby to refute such evidential value of the electronic signature, 
including a qualified signature? 
In the light of the foregoing, the Administrativen sad – Veliko Tarnovo 
(Administrative Court, Veliko Tarnovo), Sixth Chamber, on the basis of 
Article 631(1) of the GPK, in conjunction with Article 144 of the APK, 
has made the following O R D E R: 
The following questions are REFERRED to the Court of Justice of the European 
Union for a preliminary ruling pursuant to the second case of point (b) of the first 
paragraph of Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union: 
1. Must the phrase ‘legal effect [of an electronic signature] as evidence’ 
in Article 25(1) of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European 
Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic 
identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the 
internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC be interpreted as 
meaning that that provision requires the courts of the Member States to 
presume that, where the requirements of [points] 10, 11 and 12 of 
Article 3 of that regulation are met or are not in dispute, the existence 
and claimed authorship of such a signature must be presumed a priori 
to be established beyond doubt or dispute, and must that phrase be 
interpreted as meaning that, where the requirements of those 
provisions are met, the courts of the Member States are required to 
recognise that the qualified electronic signature has the evidential 
value/force equivalent to that of a handwritten signature only to the 
extent that the relevant national legal regime prescribes in respect of 
such a handwritten signature? 
2. Must the phrase ‘shall not be denied … in legal proceedings’ in 
Article 25(1) of that regulation be interpreted as imposing on the 
national courts of the Member States an absolute prohibition on using 
the procedural possibilities provided for in their legal systems to deny 
evidential value to the legal effect of the electronic signature provided 
for in that regulation, or must it be interpreted as meaning that that 
provision does not preclude the possibility to refute the requirements 
of [points] 10, 11 and 12 of Article 3 of that regulation as being met, 
through the use, by the national courts of the Member States, of the 
instruments applicable under their procedural laws, thereby enabling 
the parties to a dispute before the courts to refute an electronic 
signature’s evidential force and value, as provided for? 
[…]