Coty Germany GmbH v Stadtsparkasse Magdeburg.
Date: 2015-07-16
28. Article 8(1)(c) of Directive 2004/48 and Article 8(3)(e) thereof, read together, require that various rights be complied with. First, the right to information and, second, the right to protection of personal data must be complied with.
29. The right to information which is intended to benefit the applicant in the context of proceedings concerning an infringement of his right to property thus seeks, in the field concerned, to apply and implement the fundamental right to an effective remedy guaranteed in Article 47 of the Charter, and thereby to ensure the effective exercise of the fundamental right to property, which includes the intellectual property right protected in Article 17(2) of the Charter. As noted by the Advocate General in point 31 of his Opinion, the first of those fundamental rights is a necessary instrument for the purpose of protecting the second.
33. The present request for a preliminary ruling thus raises the question of the need to reconcile the requirements of the protection of different fundamental rights, namely the right to an effective remedy and the right to intellectual property, on the one hand, and the right to protection of personal data, on the other (see, to that effect, judgment in Promusicae , C‑275/06, EU:C:2008:54, paragraph 65).
34. In that regard, it must be borne in mind, in the first place, that, according to the case-law of the Court, EU law requires that, when transposing directives, the Member States take care to rely on an interpretation of them which allows a fair balance to be struck between the various fundamental rights protected by the EU legal order. Subsequently, when implementing the measures transposing those directives, the authorities and courts of the Member States must not only interpret their national law in a manner consistent with those directives but also make sure that they do not rely on an interpretation of them which would be in conflict with those fundamental rights or with the other general principles of EU law (see judgment in Promusicae , C‑275/06, EU:C:2008:54, paragraph 70).
35. In the second place, it should be noted that Article 52(1) of the Charter states, inter alia, that any limitation on the exercise of the rights and freedoms recognised must respect the essence of those rights and freedoms and that it is apparent from the case-law of the Court that a measure which results in serious infringement of a right protected by the Charter is to be regarded as not respecting the requirement that such a fair balance be struck between the fundamental rights which must be reconciled (see, as regards an injunction, judgments in Scarlet Extended , C‑70/10, EU:C:2011:771, paragraphs 48 and 49, and Sabam , C‑360/10, EU:C:2012:85, paragraphs 46 and 47).
37. It appears that the provision of national law at issue in the main proceedings, taken in isolation, allows such an unlimited refusal, since its wording does not contain any condition or qualification, a matter which is, however, for the referring court to determine.
38. Accordingly, such a provision of national law, taken in isolation, is liable to frustrate the right to information recognised in Article 8(1) of Directive 2004/48 and is therefore, as follows from paragraph 29 of the present judgment, such as to infringe the fundamental right to an effective remedy and the fundamental right to intellectual property.
41. It follows from the foregoing that a national provision, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, taken in isolation, is such as to seriously infringe the fundamental right to an effective remedy and, ultimately, the fundamental right to intellectual property, enjoyed by the holders of those rights, and that it does not, therefore, comply with the requirement to ensure a fair balance between the various fundamental rights weighed up in Article 8 of Directive 2004/48.
42. It is, however, for the referring court to determine whether there are, in the national law concerned, any other means or other remedies which would allow the competent judicial authorities to order that the necessary information concerning the identity of persons who are covered by Article 8(1) of Directive 2004/48 be provided, in view of the specific circumstances of each case, in accordance with recital 17 in the preamble to that directive.