international litigation blog

Belgian Data Protection Authority Prohibits Use in Arbitration Proceedings of Personal Data Received in Breach of GDPR

This article has been co-authored by Thibaut D’hulst (Counsel at Van Bael & Bellis) and Justine Van den Bon and Margot Vogels (Associates at Van Bael & Bellis)

By a decision of 29 January 2021, the Litigation Chamber of the Belgian Data Protection Authority (the DPA) prohibited a controller from passing on personal data obtained in breach of data protection rules to its legal counsel. The Litigation Chamber did not issue a fine, but the decision serves as a clear message that further processing of such unlawfully obtained personal data, even in the context of legal proceedings, is prohibited.

The dispute before the DPA involved an individual practising as a notary (the Plaintiff), her accountant (the First Defendant) and her former business partner also practising as a notary (the Second Defendant). The case at hand takes place in the broader context of arbitration proceedings relating to the winding-up of a notary practice due to financial issues and the refusal to submit certain accounting documents and other information.

The First Defendant mistakenly forwarded an e-mail with 32 annexes, which contained personal data relating to the Plaintiff, to the Second Defendant. This resulted in the disclosure of data relating to the Plaintiff’s personal activities, finances, and other personal data to the Second Defendant, without the Plaintiff’s consent. In turn, the Second Defendant forwarded the e-mail and its annexes to his legal counsel, who then used the e-mail and its annexes as an exhibit within the context of the pending arbitration proceedings between the Second Defendant and the Plaintiff.READ MORE

European Commission Launches Public Consultation on Modernising Cross-border Judicial Cooperation

On 16 February 2021, the European Commission (the Commission) launched a public consultation to gather the views of stakeholders on its initiative to propose a new legislation to digitalise all data exchanges and communications taking place in the context of judicial cooperation between EU Member States. The Commission’s proposal for a new legislation is expected to be published by the end of 2021.READ MORE

European Parliament Adopts Collective Redress Directive For Consumers

On 24 November 2020, the European Parliament (the EP) adopted a Directive on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers (the Collective Redress Directive or CRD).

The proposed CRD was initially published by the European Commission (the Commission) in April 2018. The proposal was then examined by the EP and by the Council of the European Union (the Council), which entered into interinstitutional negotiations in January 2020. The EP and the Council reached a political agreement on the final text of the Directive on 22 June 2020. On 4 November 2020, the Council adopted its position at first reading, which has now been formally approved by the EP and has since also been published in the Official Journal (Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2020 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers and repealing Directive 2009/22/EC, O.J. (2020) L 409/1).

The CRD establishes an EU-wide “class action” or “representative action”. It covers infringements of EU law which are harmful to the collective interests of natural persons in their capacity as consumers, regardless of whether those consumers are referred to in the relevant instruments as “consumers”, “travellers”, “users”, “customers”, “retail investors”, “data subjects” or otherwise. Accordingly, representative actions may be brought not only for infringements of general EU consumer law, but also of EU rules pertaining to the protection of personal data, geo-blocking, financial services, energy and telecommunications.READ MORE