Case C-366/06: Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Korkein hallinto-oikeus (Finland) lodged on 8 September 2006 — DNA Verkot Oy
Date: 2006-11-18
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: interpretation of the law, jurisdiction, market research, right of action, telecommunications industry

C 281/24

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

18.11.2006

with information provided by that client
in accordance
with the legislation in force. The work of data processing
centres preparing pay slips does not therefore entail any
responsibility for calculating an individual employee's net
salary on the basis of the relevant legislation, which requires
analysis
legislation.
Restricting the activity of preparing and printing pay slips
to employment consultants cannot therefore be justified in
the light of the need to protect workers' rights since such
tasks are essentially executory and do not require specific
professional qualifications.

and in-depth knowledge of

that

Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Korkein
hallinto-oikeus (Finland) lodged on 8 September 2006 —
DNA Verkot Oy

(Case C-366/06)

(2006/C 281/38)

Language of the case: Finnish

— In order to be able to provide the services of preparing and
printing pay slips to small undertakings, data-processing
centres must be ‘formed and composed exclusively of
persons registered with the relevant professional associa-
tions’.
‘That requirement … precludes the board members of
foreign parent companies from being founder members or from
sitting on the board of management of an Italian subsidiary
unless they arrange to be registered with the relevant professional
associations. … [This] is a covert form of discrimination which,
through the application of a criterion other than nationality,
achieves the same result as discrimination which is overtly based
on nationality.’
(Opinion of Advocate General Mischo in
Case C-79/01 Payroll Data Services [2002] ECR I-8923).

Referring court

Korkein hallinto-oikeus

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: DNA Verkot Oy

— Italian legislation provides that any person applying for
registration with such an association must submit a certifi-
cate of residence with the application. If the purpose of the
residence requirement is to enable checks to be carried out
and, where necessary, action to be taken against providers
of services acting in breach of the rules, such a requirement
appears wholly disproportionate. Indeed, regardless of the
is perfectly possible to carry out
place of residence,
checks and,
impose penalties on any data-
processing centre established in any Member State. The resi-
dence requirement is not therefore justified by the need to
protect workers relied on by the Italian authorities.

if necessary,

it

— The Italian legislation that

is the subject of this action
provides, finally, that even data processing centres estab-
lished in other Member States must, in order to be able to
offer their services, have within their internal structure
employment consultants who are registered with an Italian
professional association. The requirement for employment
consultants to be registered with a professional association
appears to go beyond what is necessary for the protection
of workers and makes the provision of services subject to
an actual authorisation procedure on the part of
the
competent authorities without any distinction being made
between permanent and temporary provision of services.
To ignore such a distinction would amount to depriving ‘of
all practical effectiveness the provisions of the Treaty whose object
is, precisely, to guarantee the freedom to provide services’, (Case
C-58/98 Corsten [2000] ECR I-7919).

Other parties: Sonera Mobile Networks Oy, Viestintävirasto

Questions referred

the European Parliament and of

1. Must Article 4(1) on the right of appeal of Directive
2002/21/EC (1) of
the
Council of 7 March 2002 on a common regulatory frame-
work for electronic communications networks and services
(Framework Directive) be interpreted in such a way that a
telecommunications undertaking must be considered to
have a right of appeal against a decision in which the view
is taken that a competitor of the telecommunications under-
taking concerned does not have significant market power
status?

2. If the answer to Question 1 is affirmative, an answer to the

following question is requested:

Does the requirement in Article 4(1) of Framework Directive
2002/21/EC with regard to taking into account the facts of
the case and an effective appeal mechanism mean that a
national court may examine the facts of the case, make a
legal evaluation, and give judgment in the case, without the
Commission's decision under Article 7(4) of the Framework
Directive and its reasoning in respect of a market analysis
restricting the jurisdiction of the national court?

(1) OJ L 108, p. 33.