Are competitors allowed to sue in the event of data protection violations?

The European Court of Justice will soon rule on the long-disputed question of whether violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can also be prosecuted by competitors on the basis of the Unfair Competition Act (UWG). The Federal Court of Justice referred this question to the ECJ for clarification in preliminary ruling proceedings in its decision of January 12, 2023 - I ZR 223/19. The background to the case is two legal disputes between pharmacists concerning the sale of pharmacy-only medicines via Amazon (see BGH press release No. 6/2023 (in German only)). The plaintiffs argue, among other things, that customers' health data are processed without consent as part of the ordering process.

The German magazine Markt und Mittelstand spoke to our Berlin-based competition law expert Christina Kufer and Munich-based data protection law expert Dr. Stefan Peintinger about this case. You can find the full article (in German only) here →

FAZ.NET has also taken up the topic. The article (in German only) with comments by Dr. Stefan Peintinger and Christina Kufer can be found here →