(AGENPARL) – mer 07 dicembre 2022 ��Communications Directorate
Press and Information Unit
curia.europa.eu
��Communications Directorate
Press and Information Unit
curia.europa.eu
of the criteria for
locus standi
laid down in that article. It states that the validity of the contested decision may be
examined by
national court he
aring an action against the subsequent final decision
that closes
the procedure
adopted at national level
Findings of the Court
As a preliminary point, the
General
Court notes that, in order for an act to be open to challenge by an applicant
other
than the ‘privileged’ applicants,
that act must have binding legal effects capable of affecting the interests of
the applicant by bringing about a distinct change in his legal position. That condition overlaps, where an applicant is
not the addressee of
an individual act which he is challenging, as in the present case, with the need for the applicant
to be directly and individually concerned by that act in order to have standing to bring proceedings
In that regard, the
General
Court considers, first, tha
t the contested decision does not in itself change WhatsApp’s
legal position, since, unlike the final decision of the Irish supervisory authority, the contested decision is not directly
enforceable against WhatsApp and constitutes a preparatory act in a pr
ocedure which must be closed by the
adoption of a final decision of a national supervisory authority addressed to that undertaking
Moreover, the contested decision has no legal effect vis
vis WhatsApp that is independent of the final decision of
the Iri
sh supervisory authority. All the assessments made in the former decision are repeated in the latter and the
former has no effect that is independent of the content of the latter. Thus, the fact that an intermediate act
expresses the definitive position of
an authority that will have to be taken up in the final decision closing the
procedure at issue
as in the present case, since the contested decision contains a definitive analysis of certain
aspects of the final decision
does not necessarily mean that
that intermediate act itself brings about a distinct
change in the applicant’s legal position
Next, the
General
Court observes that
WhatsApp
is not directly concerned by the contested decision. In order to be
of direct concern to an applicant who is not
an addressee of a measure, that measure must, first, directly affect that
applicant’s legal situation and, second, leave no discretion to its addressees, who are entrusted with the task of
implementing it, such implementation being automatic and resulting
from EU rules without the application of other
intermediate rules
As regards the first of those conditions, the
General
Court recalls that the contested decision is not enforceable
against WhatsApp in a way that would allow it, without further procedural
steps, to be a source of obligations for
WhatsApp or, as the case may be, rights for other individuals. In the present case, the contested decision is not the
final step of the full procedure provided for by the GDPR
With regard to the second of those con
ditions, the
General
Court finds that, even though the contested decision was
binding on the Irish supervisory authority as regards the aspects to which it related, it left a measure of discretion to
that authority as to the content of the final decision,
which also covers other aspects,
in particular as regards the
amount of the administrative fines
Lastly, the
General
Court notes that the inadmissibility of WhatsApp’s action before it against the contested decision
is consistent with the logic of the sys
tem of judicial remedies established by the TEU and the TFEU. More specifically,
the TFEU, in particular by providing for the possibility of bringing a direct action for annulment before the Court of
Justice of the European Union or of making a request to
the latter for a preliminary ruling, has established a
complete system of legal remedies designed to ensure judicial review of the legality of acts of the European Union,
in which the national courts also participate. Under that system, where persons canno
t, by reason of the conditions
for admissibility, directly challenge EU acts before the Courts of the European Union, they are able to plead, by way
of a plea of illegality, the invalidity of such an act before the national court, which, in turn, is able t
o make a request
to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling
Under the second paragraph of Article
263 TFEU, the ‘privileged’ applicants are the Member States, th
e European Parliament, the Council and the
European Commission.
��Communications Directorate
Press and Information Unit
curia.europa.eu
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General
Court states that the logic of that system, which explains in particular the interpretation of the
conditions for the admissibility of direct actions,
is that the judicial act
ion of the Court of Justice of the European
Union and that of the national courts complement each other effectively and that the Courts of the European Union
and the national courts are not required to rule concurrently, in parallel proceedings, on the val
idity of the same EU
act, either directly or, in the case of the national court if it has doubts as to the validity of the act in question,
following a question referred for a preliminary ruling
NOTE:
An appeal, limited to points of law only, may be broug
ht before the Court
of Justice
against the decision of
the General Court within two months and ten days of notification of the decision.
Unofficial document for media use, not binding on the General Court.
full text
of the order is published on the CURIA website.
Press contact: Jacques René Zammit
(+352) 4
Set out in Article
TFEU.