Verzoek Amazon om openbaarmakingsplicht van advertentieopslag op te schorten afgewezen

HvJ EU 27 september 2023, RB 3831; ECLI:EU:T:2023:589 (Europese Commissie tegen Amazon). Bij besluit van 23 april 2023 is Amazon door de Europese Commissie aangemerkt als een zeer groot onlineplatform, wat het de verplichting geeft een repository (opslag) openbaar te maken met gedetailleerde informatie over onlinereclame. Amazon heeft nietigverklaring van die verplichting en voorlopige voorzieningen gevorderd bij het Gerecht EU. Het Gerecht heeft de tenuitvoerlegging van het besluit van de Commissie opgeschort, waartegen de Commissie hoger beroep heeft ingesteld bij het Hof. Het Hof stelt vast dat de Commissie in strijd heeft gehandeld met het beginsel dat de partijen moeten worden gehoord en de gelegenheid is ontzegd om commentaar te leveren op de argumenten die Amazon tijdens de procedure voor het Gerecht naar voren heeft gebracht. Het Hof is het voorts eens met Amazon dat haar fundamentele rechten op eerbiediging van het privéleven en de vrijheid van ondernemerschap beperkt, op het eerste gezicht niet kan worden beschouwd als irrelevant en gebrekkig aan ernst, maar acht deze bevindingen niet doorslaggevend. Er moet een belangenafweging gemaakt worden om te oordelen of opschorting gerechtvaardigd kan worden. De door de Uniewetgever verdedigde belangen prevaleren in dit geval boven de materiële belangen van Amazon, met als gevolg dat de belangenafweging doorweegt in het voordeel van de afwijzing van het verzoek tot opschorting.

80. According to settled case-law, the weighing up of the various interests involved requires the judge hearing the application for interim measures to determine whether or not the interest of the applicant for interim measures in obtaining such measures outweighs the interest in the immediate implementation of the contested act by examining, more specifically, whether the annulment of that act by the court hearing the main application would make it possible to reverse the situation which would have arisen if it had been implemented immediately and, conversely, whether suspension of its implementation would prevent it from taking full effect if the main action were dismissed (see order of 26 June 2003, Belgium and Forum 187 v Commission, C‑182/03 R and C‑217/03 R, EU:C:2003:385, paragraph 142 and the case-law cited).

81. With more particular regard to the condition that the legal situation created by an interim order must be reversible, it must be recalled that the purpose of the procedure for interim measures is to guarantee the full effectiveness of the future decision in the main action. Consequently, those proceedings are necessarily an adjunct to the main proceedings to which they are attached, with the result that the decision of the court hearing the application for interim measures must be provisional in the sense that it cannot either prejudge the future decision in the main proceedings or deprive it of all practical effect (see order of 1 September 2015, France v Commission, T‑344/15 R, EU:T:2015:583, paragraph 47 and the case-law cited).

82. In the present case, the Court will be called upon to rule, in the main proceedings, on the question as to whether the contested decision must be annulled since it will require the applicant to compile and make publicly available an advertisement repository, pursuant to Article 39 of Regulation 2022/2065. In order to retain the practical effect of a judgment annulling the contested decision, the applicant must be in a position to prevent the unlawful disclosure of that information. A judgment ordering annulment would be rendered illusory and deprived of practical effect if the present application for interim measures were to be dismissed, since that dismissal would have the effect of allowing the immediate disclosure of the information at issue, thereby effectively prejudging the future decision in the main action, namely that the action for annulment would be dismissed.

83. Consequently, the interest defended by the applicant must prevail over the interest in the dismissal of the application for interim measures, a fortiori where the grant of the interim measures requested amounts to no more than maintaining the status quo for a limited period.

84. Consequently, since all the conditions to that effect have been met, the application for the suspension of operation of the contested decision should be granted, in so far as, by virtue of that decision, Amazon Store will be required to make publicly available an advertisement repository, pursuant to Article 39 of that regulation. The suspension of operation of the contested decision is, however, granted without prejudice to the requirement for the applicant to compile the advertisement repository, which it claims to be in the process of creating.