Month: May 2018

The first steps of a revolution with a set date (25 May 2018): the “new” General Data Protection regime

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by Pedro Madeira Froufe, Editor
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1. Homo digitalis[i] is increasingly more present in all of us. It surrounds us, it captures us. Our daily life is digitalising rapidly. We live, factually and considerably, a virtual existence… but very real! The real and the virtual merge in our normal life; the frontiers between these dimensions of our existence are bluring. Yet, this high-tech life of ours does not seem to be easily framed by law. Law has its own time – for now barely compatible with the speed of technologic developments. Besides, in face of new realities, it naturally hesitates in the pursuit of the value path (therefore, normative) to follow. We must give (its) time to law, without disregarding the growth of homo digitalis.

2. Well, today (25 May 2018) the enforcement of Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) begins. Since 25 January 2012 (date of the presentation of the proposal for the Regulation) until now the problems with respect to the protection of fundamental rights – in particular the guarantee of personal data security (Article 8 CFREU) – have been progressively clearer as a result of the increase in the digital dimension of our lives. Definitely, the personal data became of economic importance that recently publicized media cases (for example, “Facebook vs. Cambridge Analytics”) underline. Its reuse for purposes other than those justifying its treatment, transaction and crossing, together with the development of the use of algorithms (so-called “artificial intelligence” techniques) have made it necessary to reinforce the uniform guarantees of citizens, owners of personal data, increasingly digitized.
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Amending social security coordination – challenges of the Regulations (EC) No. 883/2004 and No. 987/2009

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social security benefits

 by Joel Lacerda Azevedo, master in EU Law at University of Minho
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Ensuring the right to social security when exercising the right of free movement has been a major concern of the Member States in the EU. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to adopt social security measures which prevent Union citizens who work or reside in a Member State other than their own from losing all or part of their social security rights, thereby contributing to the improvement of their quality of life.

The EU provisions on social security coordination do not replace national social security systems with a single European system, such harmonization would not be possible since the social security systems of a Member State are the result of long-standing traditions deeply rooted in the culture and national preferences[i]. Consequently, instead of harmonizing social security systems, EU provisions provide for their coordination. Each Member State is free to decide who is a beneficiary under its legislation, what benefits are granted and on what conditions, how those benefits are calculated and what contributions are to be paid[ii].

In order to grant EU citizens the social and health benefits to which they are entitled, coordination between the social security systems of the Member States is necessary. However, the current Regulations (EC) Nº 883/2004[iii] and (EC) Nº 987/2009[iv] no longer reflect the changing national social security systems and the case law of the European Court of Justice.
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MEO – Serviços de Comunicações e Multimedia S.A. v. Competition Authority (C-525/16) case

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 by Nuno Calaim Lourenço, Managing Associate at SRS Advogados
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On 19 April 2018, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered its judgment in the MEO – Serviços de Comunicações e Multimedia S.A. v. Competition Authority (C-525/16) case. The judgment provides important criteria of analysis with regard to the constituent elements of an abuse of a dominant position by discrimination, under the regime of Article 102 (c) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and advances the proposition that such conduct is not subject to a per se prohibition rule. The judgment clarifies, in particular, that in the case of second-degree price discrimination (directed at customers in a downstream market with whom the dominant undertaking does not compete) an infringement of competition rules only occurs if the discrimination entails actual or potential anti-competitive effects that may distort competition between downstream operators. In other words, it is the effective competitive disadvantage that results from discrimination, which must be demonstrated by reference to the actual circumstances of the case, including the impact on the costs, income and profitability structures of the affected party – rather than the practice of discrimination considered in abstract – which constitutes the criterion for the existence of an abuse. Although it does not create any ‘safe harbours’, this important clarification allows dominant companies greater flexibility in adapting their pricing policies to different market realities and does not coerce them into applying uniform tariffs.
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Editorial of May 2018

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 by Joana Whyte, Junior Editor and Associate Lawyer at SRS Advogados
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The German Court’s decision on Mr. Puigdemont’s EAW and its similarities to a Swiss Cheese

The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) represented one of the most important developments of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice whose creation and development with the Amsterdam Treaty became one of the European Union’s objectives.

The EAW abolished the traditional process of extradition and made it simpler for European Member States to request the arrest and surrender of a requested person for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution or executing a custodial sentence or detention order.

The EAW is the first concrete measure in the field of criminal law implementing the principle of mutual recognition which the European Council referred to in the 1999 Tampere European Council as the “cornerstone of judicial cooperation in both civil and criminal matters within the Union”.

According to the principle of mutual recognition, a decision adopted by a judicial authority of a Member State (the issuing Member State), on the grounds of its internal legislation, must be recognised, accepted and executed by the executing Member States’ judicial authorities, even though the same case, according to the executing Member States’ law, could lead to a different outcome.

The EAW also abolished the principle of double criminality for a list of 32 crimes established in Article 2(2) of the EAW’s Framework Decision (Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA).

This is fundamentally where the issue on Carles Puigdemont case arises.
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