(AGENPARL) – Thu 18 December 2025 PRESS RELEASE No 160/25
Luxembourg, 18 December 2025
Judgment of the Court in Case C-182/24 | SACD and Others
The rules on the admissibility of an action for infringement of the
copyright in a collective work must ensure that the right to effective
judicial protection is observed, by not making the procedure provided for
unnecessarily complicated or costly
National law must comply with the requirements of effectiveness and equivalence of EU law, avoiding
formalities which make it impossible to call on all of the co-holders of the copyright to participate in the
proceedings and which restrict effective access to judicial redress
Between 1967 and 1974, Claude Chabrol produced fourteen films, five of which he made in collaboration with the
screenwriter Paul Gégauff. In 1990, the exploitation rights to several of those films were assigned for a period of
30 years to the company Brinter, which, in 2012, in turn transferred to Panoceanic Films SA the exploitation rights
for the five films in which Paul Gégauff collaborated as an author.
After the death of the two authors, their successors in title brought an action relating to the conduct and scope of
the assignment of those rights, in particular with regard to the conditions for the exploitation of the works. They
allege breaches of contract and infringement of copyright. The companies against which that legal action was
brought contend, for their part, that that action requires the participation of all of the co-authors or their successors
in title. It is apparent that it has not been possible to bring together all of the co-authors of the films concerned and
their successors in title, owing to circumstances relating in particular to the age of the works and the situation of
some of the co-authors.
In that context, the tribunal judiciaire de Paris (Court of Paris, France) referred questions to the Court of Justice
regarding the compatibility with EU law of a national procedural rule requiring that all of the co-authors of a
cinematographic work be called on to participate in the proceedings in order for such an action to be admissible.
In its judgment, the Court rules that EU law does not preclude a national rule which makes the admissibility of the
action conditional on all of the co-holders of the copyright being called on to participate in the proceedings,
provided that the procedure remains reasonable and does not undermine the principles of effectiveness and
equivalence. If the national court finds that the requirement in question makes access to justice impossible or
excessively difficult, it must ensure the full effectiveness of the right to an effective remedy and, where necessary,
disapply the conflicting national provisions.
The Court first recalls that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’) guarantees the
right to property and the right to an effective remedy: any national rule which de facto deprives a person of that
right constitutes a breach of the principle of effectiveness.
It adds, in that regard, that it is for the national court to examine, in the light of the requirements of the Charter,
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whether the French procedural rule requiring that all of the co-authors be called on to participate in the proceedings
does not result in an unnecessarily complicated or costly procedure. Procedural requirements that are
impossible or very difficult to meet have the effect of neutralising the right to claim copyright protection, which
runs counter to the principle of effectiveness.
Last, the Court recalls that the Charter protects intellectual property and that the requirement to call on each coholder of the copyright to participate in the proceedings must be compatible with that fundamental right.
NOTE: A reference for a preliminary ruling allows the courts and tribunals of the Member States, in disputes which
have been brought before them, to refer questions to the Court of Justice about the interpretation of EU law or the
validity of an EU act. The Court of Justice does not decide the dispute itself. It is for the national court or tribunal to
dispose of the case in accordance with the Court’s decision, which is similarly binding on other national courts or
tribunals before which a similar issue is raised.
Unofficial document for media use, not binding on the Court of Justice.
The full text and, as the case may be, an abstract of the judgment is published on the CURIA website on the day of
delivery.
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