Case C-62/19: Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 3 December 2020 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunalul Bucureşti — Romania) — Star Taxi App SRL v Unitatea Administrativ Teritorială Municipiul Bucureşti prin Primar General and Consiliul General al Municipiului Bucureşti (Reference for a preliminary ruling — Article 56 TFEU — Applicability — Purely internal situation — Directive 2000/31/EC — Article 2(a) — Concept of ‘information society services’ — Article 3(2) and (4) — Article 4 — Applicability — Directive 2006/123/EC — Services — Chapters III (Freedom of establishment for providers) and IV (Free movement of services) — Applicability — Articles 9 and 10 — Directive (EU) 2015/1535 — Article 1(1)(e) and (f) — Concept of ‘rule on services’ — Concept of ‘technical regulation’ — Article 5(1) — No prior communication — Enforceability — Activity consisting in putting persons wishing to be transported around the city in touch, by means of a smartphone application, with authorised taxi drivers — Classification — National legislation making that activity subject to a prior authorisation scheme)
Date: 2020-12-03
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: carriage of passengers, freedom to provide services, information society, information technology applications, mobile communication, provision of services, taxi, technical regulations, trade intermediary, trade licence








C_2021035EN.01000701.xml










1.2.2021   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 35/7






Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 3 December 2020 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunalul Bucureşti — Romania) — Star Taxi App SRL v Unitatea Administrativ Teritorială Municipiul Bucureşti prin Primar General and Consiliul General al Municipiului Bucureşti
(Case C-62/19) (1)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Article 56 TFEU - Applicability - Purely internal situation - Directive 2000/31/EC - Article 2(a) - Concept of ‘information society services’ - Article 3(2) and (4) - Article 4 - Applicability - Directive 2006/123/EC - Services - Chapters III (Freedom of establishment for providers) and IV (Free movement of services) - Applicability - Articles 9 and 10 - Directive (EU) 2015/1535 - Article 1(1)(e) and (f) - Concept of ‘rule on services’ - Concept of ‘technical regulation’ - Article 5(1) - No prior communication - Enforceability - Activity consisting in putting persons wishing to be transported around the city in touch, by means of a smartphone application, with authorised taxi drivers - Classification - National legislation making that activity subject to a prior authorisation scheme)
(2021/C 35/09)
Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Tribunalul Bucureşti

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicant: Star Taxi App SRL

Defendants: Unitatea Administrativ Teritorială Municipiul Bucureşti prin Primar General and Consiliul General al Municipiului Bucureşti

Interveners: IB, Camera Naţională a Taximetriştilor din România, D’Artex Star SRL, Auto Cobălcescu SRL and Cristaxi Service SRL

Operative part of the judgment







1.


Article 2(a) of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’), which refers to Article 1(1)(b) of Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 2015 laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical regulations and of rules on Information Society services, must be interpreted as meaning that an intermediary service consisting in putting persons wishing to be transported around the city in touch, by means of a smartphone application, with authorised taxi drivers in exchange for payment, where the provider of that service has entered into contracts for the provision of services with those taxi drivers for that purpose, in exchange for the payment of a monthly subscription fee, but does not transfer orders to them, does not set the fare for the journey and does not collect that fare from the passengers, who pay the fare directly to the taxi driver, and has no control over the quality of the vehicles and their drivers or the behaviour of those drivers, constitutes an ‘information society service’ within the meaning of those provisions.










2.


Article 1(1)(f) of Directive 2015/1535 must be interpreted as meaning that legislation of a local authority which makes the provision of an intermediary service — the purpose of which is to put persons wishing to be transported around the city in touch, by means of a smartphone application, with authorised taxi drivers in exchange for payment, and which is classified as an ‘information society service’ within the meaning of Article 1(1)(b) of Directive 2015/1535 — subject to obtaining prior approval to which other providers of taxi booking services are already subject, does not constitute a ‘technical regulation’ within the meaning of the former provision.










3.


Article 56 TFEU, Article 3(2) and (4) of Directive 2000/31 and Article 16 of Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market must be interpreted as not applying to a dispute where all the relevant elements are confined to a single Member State.
Article 4 of Directive 2000/31 must be interpreted as not applying to legislation of a Member State which makes the provision of an intermediary service — the purpose of which is to put persons wishing to be transported around the city in touch, by means of a smartphone application, with authorised taxi drivers in exchange for payment, and which is classified as an ‘information society service’ within the meaning of Article 2(a) of Directive 2000/31, which refers to Article 1(1)(b) of Directive 2015/1535 — subject to obtaining prior approval to which other providers of taxi booking services are already subject.
Articles 9 and 10 of Directive 2006/123 must be interpreted as precluding legislation of a Member State which makes the provision of an intermediary service — the purpose of which is to put persons wishing to be transported around the city in touch, by means of a smartphone application, with authorised taxi drivers in exchange for payment — subject to obtaining prior approval to carry out that activity, where the conditions for obtaining that approval do not meet the requirements laid down in those articles, in that they impose, inter alia, technical requirements that are inappropriate for the service in question, which is a matter for the referring court to ascertain.






(1)  OJ C 164, 13.5.2019.