Thursday, July 05, 2012

This Week in Luxembourg

This week, the Grand Chamber judgement (judge Lenaerts) concerns the exhaustion of copyrights on software under art. 4(2) of Directive 2009/24. Their reading of the directive gives a wide reading to the concept, treating online and hardcopy transfers the same, meaning that Oracle, the creator of the copyrighted software, loses. Usedsoft v. Oracle Cf. The IPKat, Chillin’ Competition and IE-Forum.nl

The French tried to indirectly take into account EU fonctionnaire income for tax purposes, but were shut down by the Court (per Judge Šváby). Bourges-Maunoury v. Direction des services fiscaux d’Eure-et-Loir

The Court (per Judge Arabadjiev) is still not prepared to call the automatic retirement age what it is: age discrimination (Directive 2000/78 makes an explicit exception for retirement in art. 6, but does the Charter?), so the plaintiff loses. Hörnfeldt v. Posten Meddelande AB

Art. 5 of the Distance Selling Directive 97/7 does not allow for service providers and sellers to convey information about, inter alia, a right of withdrawal to consumers only through a hyperlink placed on a website of the undertaking. Content Services v. Bundesarbeitskammer Cf. Recent Developments in EU Consumer Law Blog

In ERSTE Bank Hungary Nyrt v. Magyar Állam et al., the Court (per Judge Tizzano) has some fun with the pre- and post-accession effect of the insolvency Regulation 1346/2000, and the combination thereof with an action in rem.

AG Trstenjak resists the idea that Mr. Vítor Hugo Marques Almeida (NL, DE, FR) can use EU law on car insurance to get around the Portuguese rule that he is responsible for his own damage incurred in a car accident on the grounds that he didn’t wear his seatbelt. The AG thinks that the Portuguese rule that places 100% of the damage with the plaintiff in such a case is consistent with Directives 72/166, 84/5 and 90/232.

According to AG Mazák, the Austrian Datenschutzkommission, i.e. the data protection agency (cf. art. 28 of Directive 95/46) is insufficiently independent from the Chancellor. Commission v. Austria

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