ORDER OF THE COURT (Eighth Chamber)
12 March 2026 (*)
( Appeal – Article 181 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice – Cooperation of the police authorities and other law enforcement agencies of the Member States – Article 340 TFEU – Regulation (EU) 2016/794 – Article 50(1) – Non-contractual liability of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) – Alleged unlawful processing of personal data transmitted to Europol by national authorities – Reality of the damage allegedly suffered – Appeal in part manifestly inadmissible and in part manifestly unfounded )
In Case C‑566/25 P,
APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 21 August 2025,
FF, represented by J. Reisinger, advocaat,
appellant,
the other parties to the proceedings being:
European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust),
European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol),
defendants at first instance,
Kingdom of Spain,
Kingdom of the Netherlands,
interveners at first instance,
THE COURT (Eighth Chamber),
composed of O. Spineanu-Matei (Rapporteur), President of the Chamber, N. Piçarra and N. Fenger, Judges,
Advocate General: A. Rantos,
Registrar: A. Calot Escobar,
having decided, after hearing the Advocate General, to give a decision by reasoned order, in accordance with Article 181 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice,
makes the following
Order
1        By his appeal, FF asks the Court of Justice to set aside in part the order of the General Court of the European Union of 26 June 2025, FF v Eurojust and Europol (Sky ECC III) (T‑484/24, EU:T:2025:645; ‘the order under appeal’), by which the General Court dismissed his action seeking, inter alia, compensation, in the amount of EUR 30 000, for the non-material damage allegedly suffered as a result of acts committed by the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) and by certain Member States.
Legal context
The Convention of 29 May 2000
2        Article 13(1) of the Convention established by the Council in accordance with Article 34 of the Treaty on European Union, on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between the Member States of the European Union (OJ 2000 C 197, p. 3; ‘the Convention of 29 May 2000’), provides:
‘By mutual agreement, the competent authorities of two or more Member States may set up a joint investigation team for a specific purpose and a limited period, which may be extended by mutual consent, to carry out criminal investigations in one or more of the Member States setting up the team. The composition of the team shall be set out in the agreement.
A joint investigation team may, in particular, be set up where:
(a)      a Member State’s investigations into criminal offences require difficult and demanding investigations having links with other Member States;
(b)      a number of Member States are conducting investigations into criminal offences in which the circumstances of the case necessitate coordinated, concerted action in the Member States involved.
A request for the setting up of a joint investigation team may be made by any of the Member States concerned. The team shall be set up in one of the Member States in which the investigations are expected to be carried out.’
Directive 2014/41/EU
3        Article 1(1) of Directive 2014/41/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 regarding the European Investigation Order in criminal matters (OJ 2014 L 130, p. 1) provides:
‘A European Investigation Order (EIO) is a judicial decision which has been issued or validated by a judicial authority of a Member State … to have one or several specific investigative measure(s) carried out in another Member State (‘the executing State’) to obtain evidence in accordance with this Directive.
The EIO may also be issued for obtaining evidence that is already in the possession of the competent authorities of the executing State.’
Regulation (EU) 2016/794
4        Article 50(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/794 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) and replacing and repealing Council Decisions 2009/371/JHA, 2009/934/JHA, 2009/935/JHA, 2009/936/JHA and 2009/968/JHA (OJ 2016 L 135, p. 53), provides:
‘Any individual who has suffered damage as a result of an unlawful data processing operation shall have the right to receive compensation for damage suffered, either from Europol in accordance with Article 340 TFEU or from the Member State in which the event that gave rise to the damage occurred, in accordance with its national law. The individual shall bring an action against Europol before the Court of Justice of the European Union, or against the Member State before a competent national court of that Member State.’
Background to the dispute
5        The background to the dispute is set out in paragraphs 2 to 10 of the order under appeal and may, for the purposes of the present proceedings, be summarised as follows.
6        According to his assertions, the appellant is the subject, in Belgium, of criminal proceedings in respect of drug trafficking charges which are based almost exclusively on the use of data from mobile telephones operating under the ‘Sky ECC’ licence; ‘ECC’ means ‘Elliptic Curve Cryptography’.
7        Those mobile telephones had special software and modified hardware that enabled, via servers installed in Roubaix (France), end-to-end encrypted communication that could not be intercepted by conventional investigative means.
8        In the late 2010s, investigative measures initiated by the Belgian, French and Netherlands authorities targeted the ‘Sky ECC organisation’, which was suspected of commercialising products and encrypted communications services specifically aimed at facilitating the commission of criminal offences.
9        Following those national investigative measures, the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of the Netherlands adopted, at the end of 2018, European Investigation Orders in accordance with Directive 2014/41, requesting the French Republic to ‘create an image’ of the servers that were used under the ‘Sky ECC’ licence and located in Roubaix. The French Republic complied with that request by intercepting, recording and transcribing the encrypted communications entering and leaving those servers.
10      On 13 December 2019, the Belgian, French and Netherlands authorities, by an agreement adopted on the basis of Article 13 of the Convention of 29 May 2000 and Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on joint investigation teams (OJ 2002 L 162, p. 1), set up a joint investigation team, which led to the sharing, between Europol and the three Member States concerned, of intercepted raw data, which then had to be analysed, as well as the results of that analysis.
11      In that context, Europol stored the data in its IT system, undertook cross-checking, produced intelligence reports, generated data visualisation graphs and interpreted multilingual data sets.
The proceedings before the General Court and the order under appeal
12      By application lodged at the Registry of the General Court on 18 September 2024, the appellant brought an action seeking, in essence, compensation, in the amount of EUR 30 000, for the non-material damage which he claimed to have suffered as a result of acts committed by Eurojust, Europol and certain Member States.
13      By the order under appeal, the General Court, after finding, in paragraph 24 of that order, that it manifestly lacked jurisdiction to find that the agreement referred to in paragraph 10 of the present order was ‘inadmissible’, dismissed, in paragraph 46 of the order under appeal, the action as manifestly inadmissible in so far as it was directed against Eurojust.
14      In paragraphs 86 and 87 of that order, the General Court also dismissed the action as manifestly lacking any foundation in law in so far as it was directed against Europol, on the ground that one of the three cumulative conditions for Europol to incur non-contractual liability as an EU agency, namely the condition relating to the reality of the alleged damage, was not satisfied.
15      In that regard, the General Court held, in essence, in paragraphs 55 to 85 of the order under appeal, that that condition was not satisfied because the appellant had merely put forward unsubstantiated allegations regarding that condition and thus had not proved the existence and extent of the non-material damage for which he was seeking compensation from Europol.
16      As regards, in particular, the non-material damage allegedly suffered as a result of the fact that the appellant’s personal data ‘could end up in the wrong hands’, the General Court held, in paragraphs 66 to 68 of the order under appeal, that such damage, which was future and purely hypothetical, could not give rise to compensation, since the appellant had not demonstrated, moreover, that that alleged damage was imminent and foreseeable with sufficient certainty.
17      As regards the non-material damage allegedly suffered as a result of the fact that the appellant’s personal data ‘ended up in the wrong hands’, the General Court held, in essence, in paragraphs 69 to 77 of the order under appeal, that the appellant had not provided, in particular in the documents in the file, elements to prove, or, at the very least, to provide prima facie evidence of, the existence and extent of the alleged damage, and that a reference to evidence offered but not produced in the reply, even if it were to be classified as an offer of evidence, was, in the absence of any explanation justifying the delay in its submission, inadmissible.
18      Furthermore, in paragraphs 78 to 81 of that order, the General Court held that the appellant had also failed to demonstrate that that damage necessarily resulted from Europol’s conduct, since he had not produced evidence to identify the personal data that had allegedly been the subject of unlawful processing operations and to enable an assessment as to whether and to what extent that damage necessarily resulted from those operations.
19      In paragraph 88 of the order under appeal, the General Court therefore dismissed the appellant’s action in its entirety.
Form of order sought by FF
20      By his appeal, FF claims that the Court of Justice should:
–        set aside in part the order under appeal in so far as the General Court dismissed his action seeking compensation for the non-material damage allegedly caused by Europol as a result of the allegedly unlawful obtaining and processing of his personal data that were used publicly in criminal proceedings brought against him;
–        uphold the action in part by ruling that Europol caused him non-material damage due to unlawfully obtaining and processing, in breach of his right to respect for his privacy, his personal data that were used in those criminal proceedings, and by awarding him compensation in the amount of EUR 15 000 or, in the alternative, symbolic compensation or any other form of appropriate non-material compensation; and
–        order Europol to pay the costs incurred both at first instance and in the appeal proceedings.
The appeal
21      Under Article 181 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, where the appeal is, in whole or in part, manifestly inadmissible or manifestly unfounded, the Court may at any time, acting on a proposal from the Judge-Rapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, decide by reasoned order to dismiss that appeal without, where appropriate, serving it on the other parties to the proceedings before the General Court.
22      That provision must be applied in the present case.
23      By his appeal, the appellant asks, in essence, that the Court of Justice set aside the order under appeal in so far as, by that order, the General Court dismissed his action against Europol as manifestly lacking any foundation in law. He states in that regard that he does not dispute the General Court’s rejection of his complaints that the non-material damage allegedly caused by Europol resulted (i)
from the fact that it was impossible to review the personal data that were collected from the ‘Sky ECC’ server before they were used as evidence in the criminal case concerning him, and
(ii) from his preliminary detention decided on the basis of those data. He also states that he does not dispute the order under appeal in so far as, by that order, the General Court dismissed his action against Eurojust as manifestly inadmissible and declared that it manifestly lacked jurisdiction to find that the agreement referred to in paragraph 10 of the present order was inadmissible.
24      In support of his appeal, the appellant relies on two grounds of appeal alleging (i) that the General Court erred in law in that it failed to examine whether one of the conditions for the European Union to incur non-contractual liability, namely the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct alleged against Europol, was satisfied in the present case; and (ii) an error of law in the General Court’s examination of another of those conditions, namely the condition relating to the reality of two heads of non-material damage allegedly caused by Europol.
The first ground of appeal
FF’s arguments
25      By his first ground of appeal, the appellant submits that, in paragraph 56 of the order under appeal, the General Court disregarded the case-law of the Court of Justice and certain sources of international law by failing to examine, in the first place, the condition for the European Union to incur non-contractual liability, relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of, in view, in particular, of the fact that, in the present case, he claims to have suffered non-material damage.
26      While acknowledging that it follows from the case-law of the Court of Justice, in particular from the judgment of 9 September 1999, Lucaccioni v Commission (C‑257/98 P, EU:C:1999:402, paragraph 13), that the EU Courts are not obliged to examine in a particular order the three conditions for the European Union to incur non-contractual liability, the appellant considers that it could nevertheless be inferred from the Court’s previous case-law, resulting in particular from the judgment of 15 September 1994, KYDEP v Council and Commission (C‑146/91, EU:C:1994:329, paragraph 20), that the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of must always be examined before the other two conditions, in particular where non-material damage is alleged. Moreover, he argues, in the vast majority of their decisions relating to actions for damages, the Court of Justice and the General Court examine that condition first. In any event, the appellant considers that reasons of procedural economy cannot be relied on to justify an examination of those conditions in an indeterminate order where, as in the present case, the case concerns an
issue of principle likely to be of interest to a large number of applicants in a similar, or even identical, situation.
27      According to the appellant, even if the other two conditions for the European Union to incur non-contractual liability are not satisfied, an examination, in the first place, of the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of would enable the EU Courts, if that condition were considered to be satisfied, not to order an applicant to pay the costs incurred by the defendant and, above all, to disclose to the public the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of, which, as the Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have already held, may in itself constitute appropriate and, in principle, sufficient compensation for any non-material damage. Such an approach is, he argues, also apparent from the case-law of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and from the practice of the United Nations.
Findings of the Court
28      It must be recalled, as a preliminary point, that, according to Article 50(1) of Regulation 2016/794, any individual who has suffered damage as a result of an unlawful data processing operation has the right to receive compensation for damage suffered from Europol in accordance with Article 340 TFEU. Consequently, the case-law of the Court of Justice on the latter article is relevant in the present case.
29      In accordance with the case-law referred to, in essence, by the General Court in paragraph 55 of the order under appeal, the European Union may incur non-contractual liability under the second paragraph of Article 340 TFEU only if a number of conditions are fulfilled, namely the existence of a sufficiently serious breach of a rule of law intended to confer rights on individuals (referred to hereinafter, according to the wording used by the General Court in the order under appeal, as ‘the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of’), the fact of damage and the existence of a direct causal link between the breach of the obligation resting on the author of the act and the damage sustained by the injured parties (judgments of 18 December 2025, WS and Others v
Frontex (Joint return operation), C‑679/23 P, EU:C:2025:976, paragraph 60 and the case-law cited, and of 18 December 2025, Hamoudi v Frontex, C‑136/24 P, EU:C:2025:977, paragraph 68 and the case-law cited).
30      It is also apparent from the case-law referred to in the preceding paragraph that, if any one of those conditions is not satisfied, the action must be dismissed in its entirety and it is
unnecessary to consider the other conditions for non-contractual liability on the part of the European Union, and that the EU Courts are not required to examine those conditions in any particular order (see, to that effect, judgments of 9 September 1999, Lucaccioni v Commission, C‑257/98 P, EU:C:1999:402, paragraphs 13 and 14; of 13 December 2018, European Union v Gascogne Sack Deutschland and Gascogne, C‑138/17 P and C‑146/17 P, EU:C:2018:1013, paragraph 68 and the case-law cited; and of 21 December 2023, United Parcel Service v Commission, C‑297/22 P, EU:C:2023:1027, paragraph 61 and the case-law cited).
31      Consequently, first, the General Court did not err in deciding to examine, in the first place, in paragraph 56 of the order under appeal, the condition relating to the reality of alleged non-material damage, without examining beforehand the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of. Second, since it concluded, from that examination, that that condition was not satisfied, it was not required to examine the other two conditions for Europol to incur non-contractual liability, in particular the condition relating to the alleged unlawfulness of that agency’s conduct (see, by analogy, judgment of 18 December 2025, WS and Others v Frontex (Joint return operation), C‑679/23 P, EU:C:2025:976, paragraph 62).
32      The arguments put forward by the appellant are not such as to call into question the case-law referred to in paragraph 30 of the present order.
33      First, in paragraph 20 of the judgment of 15 September 1994, KYDEP v Council and Commission (C‑146/91, EU:C:1994:329), it is true that the Court of Justice stated, after recalling the three conditions for the European Union to incur non-contractual liability, that ‘the Court’s examination must therefore begin with the allegation that the institutions conducted themselves unlawfully’, namely the first of the three conditions referred to in paragraph 29 of the present order. However,
it is not apparent from that wording that the Court considered it necessary to begin the examination of the conditions for the European Union to incur non-contractual liability, in all circumstances, with the examination of that condition. In addition, the appellant himself acknowledges that the settled case-law subsequent to that judgment, which is referred to in paragraph 30 of the present order, must be understood as not requiring that the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of be examined before the other two conditions for that liability to be incurred.
34      Second, the fact that, in the present case, the appellant claims to have suffered non-material damage cannot call into question the case-law referred to in paragraph 30 of the present order since that case-law has already been applied in cases in which non-material damage was alleged without the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of having been examined (see, inter alia, judgments of 9 September 1999, Lucaccioni v Commission, C‑257/98 P, EU:C:1999:402, paragraphs 7 and 16, and of 18 March 2010, Trubowest Handel and Makarov v Council and Commission, C‑419/08 P, EU:C:2010:147, paragraphs 43 and 49). In the light of what has been stated above, it is also irrelevant that, in the vast majority of the decisions of the Court of Justice and of the General Court concerning the non-contractual liability of the European Union, those courts are said to begin the examination of the conditions for the establishment of the non-contractual liability of the European Union by examining the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of; it is also irrelevant that the present case concerns, in the appellant’s view, an issue of principle likely to be of interest to a large number of applicants in a similar, or even identical, situation to that of the appellant.
35      Third, as regards the argument that a finding that the conduct complained of is unlawful would, at the very least, allow an applicant, even if the other two conditions for the European Union to incur non-contractual liability are not satisfied, to avoid being ordered to pay the costs incurred by the defendant, suffice it to note that, in such a situation, the applicant has been unsuccessful in any event and must therefore, both under Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, applicable to appeal proceedings by virtue of Article 184(1) of those rules, and under Article 134(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings.
36      Furthermore, although, in the circumstances provided for therein, Article 138(3) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, applicable to appeal proceedings by virtue of Article 184(1) of those rules, and Article 134 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court provide that one party may be ordered to pay a proportion of the costs of the other party, such a possibility is not automatic, but depends on the ‘circumstances of the case’. Similarly, the rule laid down in Article 135(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, under which an unsuccessful party may be ordered to pay, in addition to his or her own costs, only a proportion of the costs of the other party, or even may not be ordered to pay in that respect, depends on an assessment of ‘equity’, which is not automatic in nature. Therefore, it cannot be inferred from those provisions that the Court of Justice or the General Court necessarily decide to exempt an applicant, such as FF, from paying all or part of the costs incurred by the defendant in the event that, assuming that the three conditions for the European Union to incur non-contractual liability have been examined, the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of is considered to be satisfied unlike the other two conditions.
37      Fourth, while it is true, as follows from paragraph 72 of the judgment of 28 May 2013, Abdulrahim v Council and Commission (C‑239/12 P, EU:C:2013:331), that the recognition, in the judgments or orders of the Court of Justice or of the General Court, of the unlawfulness of an act or conduct of an institution, body, office, agency or servant of the European Union is capable of constituting a form of reparation for the non-material harm suffered by the person concerned as a result of that unlawfulness, it is still necessary, for such a form of reparation to be ordered by the EU Courts, that the other two conditions for the establishment of the non-contractual liability of the EU institution, body, office or agency in question be satisfied, with the result that that judgment cannot call into question the case-law referred to in paragraph 30 of the present order.
38      As regards, fifth, the fact that the case-law or the practice of courts or of tribunals or international organisations other than the Court of Justice have enshrined the priority nature of the examination of the condition relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct complained of, suffice it to note that the EU legal order created by the Community treaties and developed by the subsequent treaties, most recently by the Treaty of Lisbon, has its own constitutional framework and founding principles, a particularly sophisticated institutional structure and a complete set of legal rules which ensure its functioning, and enjoys autonomy from, inter alia, international law (judgment of 18 December 2025, Commission v Poland (Ultra vires review of the Court’s case-law – Primacy of EU law), C‑448/23, EU:C:2025:975, paragraph 166 and the case-law cited). In those circumstances, the solutions adopted, in relation to non-contractual liability, by international courts or tribunals other than the Court of Justice, or by international organisations other than the European Union cannot bind the latter.
39      As regards, more specifically, the case-law of the ECtHR relied on by the appellant, according to which a finding of a violation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), signed in Rome on 4 November 1950, by a Contracting State of that convention, may constitute sufficient just satisfaction for the non-material damage suffered, for the purposes of Article 41 of that convention (see, inter alia, ECtHR, 4 December 2015, Roman Zakharov v. Russia, CE:ECHR:2015:1204JUD004714306, § 312), it should be noted that that case-law, which corresponds, in essence, to the case-law referred to in paragraph 37 of the present order, cannot call into question the fact that, as stated in that paragraph, a finding that an act or conduct of an institution, body, office, agency or servant of the European Union is unlawful can be regarded by the EU Courts as constituting a form of reparation for the alleged non-material damage only if the other two conditions for the establishment of the European Union’s non-contractual liability are satisfied.
40      In the light of the foregoing, the first ground of appeal must be rejected as manifestly unfounded.
The second ground of appeal
FF’s arguments
41      By his second ground of appeal, the appellant submits that the General Court made several errors of law in finding, in paragraph 63 and in paragraph 65 et seq. of the order under appeal, that the condition, for Europol to incur non-contractual liability, relating to the reality of the heads of non-material damage referred to in those paragraphs, was not satisfied.
42      First, the appellant argues that he did not, contrary to what the order under appeal states, merely assert, in the application at first instance, that he suffered non-material damage as a result of the fact that the personal data concerning him ‘could fall into the wrong hands’, but that
he also maintained that that damage was caused to him because those data did actually ‘fall into the wrong hands’, namely the fact that those data were held by Europol and the investigating authorities in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The General Court thus, he argues, distorted his arguments, with the result that its conclusion relating to the existence of that head of non-material damage is incorrect.
43      Second, the appellant argues that the General Court imposed an excessive standard of proof on him in order to demonstrate the reality of the heads of non-material damage concerned. In his view, the General Court should have examined whether the existence of damage was overall plausible, taking into account, inter alia, the fact that Europol did not dispute that the appellant was the sender or recipient of the data from ‘Sky ECC’ accounts which, in his application, he
stated that he possessed; nor did Europol deny that it held or had actually received those data.
44      In particular, he argues, the General Court failed to take account of the case-law of the Court of Justice according to which it is not necessary, in order to establish the reality of non-material damage, to submit an offer of evidence to that effect, provided that the applicant establishes that the conduct alleged against the institution, body, office or agency concerned was such as to cause him or her such damage (judgment of 16 July 2009, SELEX Sistemi Integrati v Commission, C‑481/07 P, EU:C:2009:461, paragraph 38). In the specific circumstances of the present case, the General Court should, the appellant argues, have held that the conduct alleged against Europol was such as to cause non-material damage to him due to the infringement of his privacy as a result of Europol’s gaining knowledge of confidential telecommunications and as a result of the use of those telecommunications in a public criminal case. Such a lower standard of proof is, the appellant argues, also necessary because he does not know which are the exact data held by Europol, since he does not have access to them.
45      The appellant adds that, notwithstanding the offer of evidence to which he referred before the General Court and which he submits to the Court of Justice at the appeal stage, namely a report from the Belgian prosecuting authority certifying that he was indeed the user of the ‘Sky ECC’ accounts referred to in the application, it is impossible for him to prove that the data that were from those accounts and used against him in the criminal proceedings of which he is the subject are identical to the data held by Europol. In those circumstances, it should, he argues, reasonably be accepted, in the absence of specific information put forward by Europol to establish the contrary, that that agency’s conduct was such as to cause the alleged non-material damage.
46      The appellant also submits that, by providing the data used in the criminal case concerning him, he might be led to produce data other than those held by Europol and which are therefore not in Europol’s possession, which would only aggravate the harm to him resulting from the infringement of his privacy. As the ECtHR held in its decision of 24 September 2024, A.L. and E.J. v. France (CE:ECHR:2024:0924DEC004471520), persons such as the appellant cannot be required to demonstrate that they were, at the time of the acts alleged against them, users of an end-to-end encrypted communication service, such as the ‘Sky ECC’ service, since that would amount to forcing them to incriminate themselves and would amount to disproportionately impeding the proper exercise of their right to an effective judicial remedy.
Findings of the Court
47      As a preliminary point, it must be observed that, as regards the non-material damage allegedly suffered by the appellant as a result of the ‘publicity’ given to his personal data which were processed by Europol, none of the arguments put forward by the appellant in support of his complaint relating to paragraph 63 of the order under appeal explains in a sufficiently coherent and comprehensible manner the error of law allegedly made by the General Court in holding, in that paragraph, that the appellant had not produced any document to prove the existence of the criminal proceedings brought against him in the Netherlands or to make it possible to assess whether his case had received any publicity.
48      It follows from the second subparagraph of Article 256(1) TFEU, the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and Article 168(1)(d) and Article 169(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested paragraphs of the decision under appeal and the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal, failing which the appeal or the ground of appeal concerned may be inadmissible (judgment of 15 July 2025, ECB and Commission v Corneli, C‑777/22 P and C‑789/22 P, EU:C:2025:580, paragraph 58 and the case-law cited). It follows that the second ground of appeal is manifestly inadmissible in so far as it relates to paragraph 63 of the order under appeal.
49      As to the substance, the appellant complains that the General Court, in the first place, distorted his arguments in that it stated that the non-material damage referred to in paragraph 65 et seq. of the order under appeal resulted from the fact that his personal data ‘could have ended up in the wrong hands’, whereas the appellant had also claimed that that damage resulted from the fact that those data did in fact ‘end up in the wrong hands’.
50      In that regard, suffice it to note that the appellant has misread the order under appeal. Far from distorting the appellant’s arguments, the General Court clearly contemplated, in paragraph 65 of that order, that the non-material damage resulted, according to the appellant, from the fact that his personal data ‘ended up’ or ‘could have ended up’ in the wrong hands. The General Court therefore examined the two parts of that alternative, in paragraphs 66 to 68 and in paragraphs 69 to 85 of that order, respectively.
51      In the second place, the appellant complains that the General Court imposed on him an excessive standard of proof in order to demonstrate that there was actual non-material damage resulting from the fact that his personal data had ‘ended up in the wrong hands’.
52      In that regard, first, as regards the argument that the appellant provided the General Court, without being contradicted by Europol, with the usernames of the accounts that he held on the ‘Sky ECC’ communication service, in respect of which the personal data were allegedly unlawfully processed by Europol, it follows from paragraphs 57 and 58 of the order under appeal that, as regards the condition for the establishment of the non-contractual liability of the European Union relating to the reality of damage, that damage must be actual and certain, which it is for an applicant to prove. It is for that applicant to adduce conclusive proof as to both the existence and extent of the damage which he or she alleges, and to establish that the damage on which he or she relies affects him or her personally (see, to that effect, judgments of 9 November 1989, Briantex and Di Domenico v EEC and Commission, 353/88, EU:C:1989:415, paragraph 6, and of 6 September 2018, Klein v Commission, C‑346/17 P, EU:C:2018:679, paragraph 147; and order of 3 September 2021, Löning v Commission, C‑176/21 P, EU:C:2021:697, paragraph 19).
53      In so far as the appellant’s argument referred to in the preceding paragraph must be understood as criticising the General Court for having failed to take into account Europol’s silence as to the appellant’s use of several ‘Sky ECC’ accounts, the respective usernames of which the appellant claims were disclosed by him in the application initiating proceedings, it must be observed that, in none of his pleadings before the General Court has the appellant referred to such accounts or indicated the usernames for those accounts. On the contrary, it is apparent from those pleadings, read in conjunction with the General Court’s analysis, in paragraph 71 of the order under appeal, of the offers of evidence, that the appellant has neither argued nor demonstrated, by way of any offer of evidence, that he held one or more accounts on the ‘Sky EEC’ communication service. In those circumstances, the General Court cannot be criticised for not having taken into account Europol’s silence in that regard.
54      That being so, it follows from paragraph 72 of the order under appeal that, in his reply, the appellant had stated that he had an ‘official report’ containing personal data that concerned him and that had been intercepted and then processed inter alia by Europol, but that he did not intend to produce that report before the General Court for reasons of protection of his privacy; the appellant confirmed at the appeal stage that it is apparent from that ‘official report’, which is annexed to the appeal, that, according to the Belgian criminal authorities, he held several ‘Sky ECC’ accounts identified by different usernames.
55      In those circumstances, in so far as, by his argument summarised in paragraph 52 of the present order, the appellant complains that the General Court rejected, in paragraphs 72 to 76 of the order under appeal, that ‘official report’ as evidence, it must be observed that, in those paragraphs, the General Court stated, in essence, that that item of evidence should have been produced in the application or that its late production at the reply stage should have been justified and that it was not for the General Court to request the production of documents or to carry out, of its own motion, an investigation of the file in order to remedy the parties’ omissions in regard to the production of evidence; the appellant does not dispute that at the appeal stage.
56      The submission of an item of evidence was essential
for the General Court to be able to examine whether the appellant
was the holder of several ‘Sky ECC’ accounts, in respect of which the personal data concerning him had been transmitted to Europol and, therefore, to distinguish individually, so far as he is concerned, the reality of the alleged damage. Therefore, it cannot be found that, by holding, in essence, in paragraph 77 of the order under appeal, that the appellant ‘[had] not discharged his burden of proving the existence and extent of the non-material damage’ that was alleged, the General Court imposed on the appellant a standard of proof that was excessive in the light of the case-law referred to in paragraph 52 of the present order.
57      In that regard, it must also be noted that the appellant does not dispute, by his second ground of appeal, paragraph 59 of the order under appeal, according to which the General Court held that, in accordance with the case-law referred to in paragraph 52 of the present order, the condition relating to the reality of the damage suffered could not be regarded as satisfied by invoking the damage suffered by other users of the ‘Sky ECC’ communication service as a result of the data processing operations concerned.
58      The decision of the ECtHR of 24 September 2024, A.L. and E.J. v. France (CE:ECHR:2024:0924DEC004471520), relied on by the appellant, cannot call into question the foregoing considerations. In paragraphs 112 to 114 of that decision, the ECtHR held, in essence, that where an end-to-end encrypted communication service, such as the ‘Sky ECC’ communication service, although having a large number of users, operates in a closed network, applicants who claim that the capture of their data from that service infringes Articles 6 and 13 of the ECHR must sufficiently demonstrate that they were part of the group of persons targeted by that capture. To that end, the ECtHR held that the applicants in question in the case which gave rise to that decision, in view of the fact that they were being prosecuted as a result of that capture of their data, were not required to demonstrate that they were actually users of that service in so far as that would have forced them to incriminate themselves, but could merely justify the prosecution’s production
of evidence obtained from the capture concerned.
59      As follows from paragraph 56 of the present order, the appellant specifically failed to produce, before the General Court, such evidence which he claimed to have at his disposal in the present case in order to distinguish individually, so far as he is concerned, the reality of the alleged damage.
60      As regards the fact that the appellant has produced before the Court of Justice the ‘official report’ in question, it is sufficient to recall that an offer of evidence submitted for the first time before the Court of Justice, when it could have been presented before the General Court, must be regarded as being out of time and, therefore, manifestly inadmissible, at the stage of the appeal (see, to that effect, order of 30 June 2015, Evropaïki Dynamiki v Commission, C‑575/14 P, EU:C:2015:443, paragraph 22).
61      Second, contrary to what the appellant claims, the General Court duly took into account, in paragraph 78 of the order under appeal, the case-law resulting from the judgment of 16 July 2009, SELEX Sistemi Integrati v Commission (C‑481/07 P, EU:C:2009:461, paragraph 38), according to which, even in the absence of evidence capable of demonstrating the existence and extent of non-material damage, the condition relating to the existence of such damage may be satisfied if the applicant establishes that non-material damage necessarily resulted from the conduct complained of.
62      In so far as the appellant claims, in that regard, that the General Court, in paragraphs 79 to 81 of the order under appeal, erred in law in holding, contrary to the case-law referred to in the preceding paragraph, that he should have adduced evidence enabling the General Court to identify the personal data which had allegedly been the subject of unlawful processing operations and to assess whether, and to what extent, the alleged non-material damage necessarily stemmed from those operations, it must be held that the appellant has misread those paragraphs 79 to 81.
63      The General Court held, in essence, in those paragraphs 79 to 81, that that case-law did not exempt the appellant from his obligation to demonstrate, at least by way of prima facie evidence, that, in accordance with the case-law referred to in paragraph 52 of the present order, the damage on which he relied affected him personally. However, the appellant refused to produce before the General Court prima facie evidence to establish that he was, according to the findings made in the ‘official report’ referred to in paragraph 54 of the present order, the user of several ‘Sky ECC’ accounts, in respect of which the personal data were transmitted to Europol for processing.
64      In the light of the foregoing, the second ground of appeal must be rejected as being, in part, manifestly inadmissible and, in part, manifestly unfounded.
65      It follows that the appeal must be rejected as being, in part, manifestly inadmissible and, in part, manifestly unfounded.
Costs
66      Under Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, which applies to appeal proceedings by virtue of Article 184(1) of those rules, a decision as to costs is to be given in the judgment or order which closes the proceedings.
67      In the
present case, since the present order was adopted before the appeal was served on the defendants at first instance and, therefore, before they could have incurred costs, it is appropriate to decide that the appellant is to bear his own costs.
On those grounds, the Court (Eighth Chamber) hereby orders:
1.      The appeal is dismissed as being, in part, manifestly inadmissible and, in part, manifestly unfounded.
2.      FF shall bear his own costs.
Luxembourg, 12 March 2026.
A. Calot Escobar
O. Spineanu-Matei
Registrar
President of the Chamber
*      Language of the case: English.