Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2024:571
Date: 2024-07-04
Language of the case: Romanian
Court formation: Seventh Chamber
Subject matter: Taxation;Value added tax
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Romania

Summary C-179/23 ‒ 1 
Case C-179/23 
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: 
21 March 2023 
Referring court: 
Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție (Romania) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
15 November 2022 
Appellants in cassation – Defendants: 
Guvernul României 
Ministerul Finanțelor 
Respondent in cassation – Applicant: 
Centrul Român pentru Administrarea Drepturilor Artiștilor 
Interpreți (Credidam) 
  
Subject matter of the main proceedings 
Appeal by which the Guvernul României (Romanian Government) and the 
Ministerul Finanțelor (Ministry of Finance), opposing the Centrul Român pentru 
Administrarea Drepturilor Artiștilor Interpreți (Romanian Centre for the 
Administration of Performing Artists’ Rights, ‘Credidam’), seek the setting aside 
of the judgment of 21 May 2019 of the Curtea de Apel București (Court of 
Appeal, Bucharest, Romania) and, after a fresh hearing, the dismissal as 
unfounded of the application for the annulment of paragraphs 12 and 13 of point 8 
of the Normele metodologice de aplicare a Legii nr. 227/2015 privind Codul fiscal 
(Methodological Rules for the Application of Law No 227/2015 establishing the 
Tax Code). 
EN 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-179/23 
 
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Subject matter and legal basis of the request 
Pursuant to Article 267 TFEU, interpretation is sought of Articles 24(1) and 25(c) 
of Directive 2006/112/EC. 
Questions referred for a preliminary ruling 
1. Does the collection, distribution and payment of remuneration by collective 
management organisations, in return for a fee, constitute a supply of services, 
within the meaning of Article 24(1) and Article 25(c) of Directive 2006/112/EC 
(the VAT directive), to copyright holders and holders of related rights? 
2. If the first question is answered in the affirmative, does the work that 
collective management organisations do for rights holders constitute a supply of 
services within the meaning of the VAT directive even if the rights holders, on 
whose behalf collective management organisations collect remuneration, are not 
deemed to be providing a service to the users who are required to pay that 
remuneration? 
Provisions of European Union law and case-law of the Court of Justice relied 
on 
Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of 
value added tax (‘the VAT Directive’), Article 2(1)(c), Article 9(1), Article 24(1), 
Article 25(c) and Article 28; 
Directive 2014/26/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
26 February 2014 on collective management of copyright and related rights and 
multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal 
market, Article 3(a) and (i); 
Judgment of 18 January 2017, SAWP (C-37/16); 
Judgment of 12 January 2021, UCMR ‒ ADA (C-501/19); 
Judgment of 14 July 2011, Henfling and Others (C-464/10); 
Provisions of national law and national case-law relied on 
Normele metodologice de aplicare a Legii nr. 227/2015 privind Codul fiscal 
(Methodological Rules for the Application of Law No 227/2015 establishing the 
Tax Code), approved by Government Decision No 1/2016, point 8, paragraphs 12 
and 13. 
Paragraph 12 establishes the VAT treatment of compensatory remuneration for 
private copying and provides that collective management organisations that act in 
CREDIDAM 
 
3 
their own name when collecting such remuneration are not subject to the 
provisions of Article 271(2) of the Tax Code, but, in such a situation, are instead 
supplying a service falling within the scope of VAT to holders of reproduction 
rights, the consideration for which is the management fee withheld from the sums 
collected. 
Paragraph 13 establishes that the provisions of Article 271(2) of the Tax Code 
apply to sums other than those referred to in paragraph 12 collected by 
organisations for the collective management of copyright and related rights in 
respect of the rights they manage. This means that collective management 
organisations are participating in a supply of services falling within the scope of 
VAT in all other cases in which they act in their own name but on behalf of rights 
holders when collecting the remuneration due to the latter for the repertoires they 
manage. 
Legea nr. 227/2015 privind Codul fiscal (Law No 227/2015 establishing the Tax 
Code), Article 268(1)(a), which provides that transactions which, in accordance 
with Articles 270 to 272, constitute or are assimilated to a supply of goods or a 
supply of services, within the scope of the tax, and are carried out in return for 
payment are transactions taxable in Romania, and Article 271, which governs the 
supply of services and provides, in paragraph 2 thereof, that where a taxable 
person acting in his own name but on behalf of a third party participates in a 
supply of services, he is deemed to have received or supplied the services in 
question himself. 
Legea nr. 8/1996 privind dreptul de autor și drepturile conexe (Law No 8/1996 on 
Copyright and Related Rights), Article 144(1), Articles 145, 146, 147 and 150 and 
Article 169(1)(b), (d) and (h), which govern collective management organisations 
and how they operate. 
Decizia nr. 48/2017 a Înaltei Curți de Casație și Justiție – Completul pentru 
dezlegarea unor chestiuni de drept (Decision No 48/2017 of the High Court of 
Cassation and Justice – Panel for the resolution of questions of law), in which the 
court held that the collection by a collective management organisation of 
remuneration due to performing artists for the radio broadcasting or 
communication to the public of sound recordings of their artistic performances is 
not a taxable transaction falling within the scope of VAT. 
Succinct presentation of the facts and procedure in the main proceedings 
1 Credidam is a collective management organisation that operates as an association 
of performing artists and whose function is to collect and distribute the 
remuneration due to performing artists from users of their artistic performances. 
2 By an action of 20 July 2018, brought before the Curtea de Apel București (Court 
of Appeal, Bucharest, Romania), Credidam requested the annulment of the 
provisions at issue on the ground that they are inconsistent with the interpretation 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-179/23 
 
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of provisions of the VAT Directive provided by the Court of Justice in its 
judgment in SAWP and with the interpretation provided by the Înalta Curte de 
Casație și Justiție (High Court of Cassation and Justice, Romania, ‘the Court of 
Cassation’), in Decision No 48/2017, of Article 126(1)(a) and Article 129 of the 
Tax Code and Article 98(1)(g)1 and Article 1065 of Law No 8/1996. 
3 The Ministry of Finance, the initiator of the contested legislative provisions, 
applied for leave to intervene in an ancillary capacity in support of the Romanian 
Government, which was granted by the Court of Appeal, Bucharest. 
4 By civil judgment of 21 May 2019, the Court of Appeal, Bucharest, upheld 
Credidam’s application, holding that the collection by the collective management 
organisation of the remuneration due to performing artists for cable retransmission 
falls outside the scope of VAT, in accordance with the Court of Cassation’s 
decision to that effect and the criteria established in the case-law of the Court of 
Justice of the European Union. Indeed, there is no direct legal relationship within 
the context of which reciprocal services are provided between the collective 
management organisation and economic operators which provide cable 
retransmission, and it is not possible to characterise the fair compensation as 
direct consideration for any supply of services. Similarly, the management fee is 
ancillary to the payment of the remuneration due for the use of artists’ associated 
rights and if the remuneration is VAT exempt, the management fee must come 
under the same tax regime. The court also held that Decision No 48/2017 of the 
Court of Cassation, even though it interpreted provisions of the previous Tax 
Code, also takes effect in the interpretation of Article 268(1)(a) and Article 271 of 
the Tax Code, which contain the same rules of substantive law. 
5 In the appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Bucharest, the 
Romanian Government and the Ministry of Finance argue that collective 
management organisations are taxable persons for VAT purposes and that the fees 
which they receive from rights holders are consideration for a taxable service 
provided for the latter’s benefit and, consequently, the contested provisions are 
not contrary to EU law. 
6 In its defence, Credidam contends that the fees are not withheld as consideration 
for a service provided, but are a payment provided for by law, the money being 
used for the purposes of distributing the remuneration collected. 
The essential arguments of the parties in the main proceedings 
7 Credidam maintains that the Court of Justice’s reasoning in the judgment in SAWP 
regarding the exclusion from the scope of VAT applies not only to compensatory 
remuneration in respect of private copying, but also to the fair compensation for 
other categories of copyright and related rights, in particular for cable 
retransmission. The fees which collective management organisations withhold 
from that fair compensation are ancillary to that compensation, but even if they 
were to be regarded as stand-alone fees, they would still not fulfil the criteria of 
CREDIDAM 
 
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the VAT Directive for classification as consideration for a supply of services, 
since they are part of the compensation, are regulated by law, which fixes their 
upper limit, expressed as a percentage of the fair compensation, and are intended 
to cover the operating costs of the collective management organisation. 
8 The appellants in cassation rely on the Guidelines of the VAT Committee and 
argue that the fees received by collective management organisations from rights 
holders are directly and effectively linked to the work carried out and constitute 
the consideration for the service of representing the interests of those rights 
holders, which is subject to VAT. That service is a separate operation from the 
collective management organisation’s collection from users of the remuneration 
due to rights holders. Payment of the fee is based on the identification of the 
holders of the rights and their works, and that identification constitutes the link 
between the management organisation and rights holders. 
Succinct presentation of the reasoning in the request for a preliminary ruling 
9 The Court of Cassation has not identified specifically any case-law of the Court of 
Justice concerning the tax treatment of the fees withheld by collective 
management organisations from the remuneration collected or the question of the 
characterisation of the legal relationship arising between copyright holders or 
holders of related rights and collective management organisations as a supply of 
services within the meaning of the VAT Directive. The judgments in SAWP and 
UCMR-ADA concern the relationship between rights holders and end users or 
consumers, rather than the relationship between rights holders and collective 
management organisations. Both judgments address the question of the 
remuneration itself, not the question of fees, which are a percentage of the 
remuneration withheld by the collective management organisation. 
10 The referring court points out that, according to the judgment in UCMR-ADA, the 
fee, or commission, is subject to VAT, being part of the remuneration, when rights 
holders supply services that are subject to VAT to end users or consumers. In such 
a case, the collective management organisation must issue an invoice to the users 
or licensees and charge VAT on the full amount of the revenue it collects, 
including the fee, and in turn the rights holders must invoice the collective 
management organisation for the full amount of the revenue received, which is to 
say the remuneration from which the fee has been deducted. On the other hand, 
where, as in the present case, the rights holders supply services not subject to 
VAT to end users or consumers, in accordance with paragraph 12 point 8 of the 
Methodological rules, the collective management organisation must invoice the 
remuneration without charging VAT, although it must be deemed to be supplying 
services to the rights holder, in respect of which it must collect VAT. 
11 The question arises of whether, in the latter case, the collective management 
organisation may be deemed to be supplying services subject to VAT for the 
benefit of the rights holder, given that, in the former case, the fee is subject to 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-179/23 
 
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VAT as part of the remuneration which is itself subject to VAT. The ancillary 
nature of the fee appears to be confirmed by the fact that intermediation services 
are subject to VAT when the intermediation relates to a supply of services falling 
within the scope of VAT, according to the judgment in Henfling and Others. In 
the same sense, since the present case concerns a non-profit association whose 
sole function is to collect and distribute the remuneration due to copyright holders 
and holders of related rights, the fee does not represent consideration for a service 
supplied, but is rather part of the fair compensation. However, the contested 
provisions apply to all collective management organisations when they act in their 
own name, regardless or the type of management, be it mandatory or optional, and 
regardless of whether the rights holder being represented is a member or not.