On 16 July 2026, the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) handed down its judgment in joined cases Imagens Médicas Integradas (IMI), Synlabhealth II, and SIBS, confirming that EU law does not, in principle, prevent a national competition authority (NCA) from seizing emails during a dawn raid without prior judicial authorisation, provided the emails relate to the subject matter of the inspection and effective safeguards are available.
The judgment, like the recent judgments of the General Court in Vivendi/Lagardère, further emphasises the broad information-gathering powers available to competition authorities when it comes to digital evidence, and reinforces the approach to balancing the protection of fundamental rights against the preservation of competition in the single market. At the same time, however, it appears to introduce an extra administrative hurdle for competition authorities when it comes to examining data contained on personal devices.
Background
The underlying proceedings arose from investigations by the Portuguese Competition Authority (PCA) into suspected contraventions of Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) – in particular, potential concerted practices, price-fixing, and abuse of dominance.
Portuguese competition law confers on the PCA the power to seize documents, provided that authorisation has been granted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO). Prior court authorisation is required in certain limited situations (e.g. where the inspection is carried out at the home of a natural person, in a banking institution, law firm, or medical practice). Approval was obtained from the PPO in these cases, however for two of the applicants (IMI and Synlabhealth II), the search warrants excluded the seizure of documents in premises used for healthcare or the archiving of documents covered by medical confidentiality.
Questions referred to the CJEU
The PCA carried out the inspections at business premises, and seized emails that it considered relevant to the suspected infringements. The applicants challenged the seizures, arguing that the emails: (1) must be protected as “correspondence” for the purposes of the right to respect for private and family life, under Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the Charter); and (2) could not be seized without prior authorisation from a court.
The following questions were referred to the CJEU.
- Do the business records at issue in this case, which are transmitted by email, constitute “correspondence” for the purposes of Article 7 of the Charter?
- Does Article 7 (and Article 8 – which protects personal data) of the Charter preclude the seizure, during inspections of business premises for suspected breaches of Articles 101 and/or 102 TFEU, of email communications between managers and employees of an undertaking without prior court authorisation?
The judgment
Are business communications protected correspondence?
As for the first question, the CJEU concluded, with reference to various precedents, that Article 7 of the Charter must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of “communications” (and also “correspondence”) extends to business emails sent and received by employees and managers of an undertaking via its email systems. The fact that, in view of its form or content, an email may be classified as “related to the business” does not deprive it of the protection Article 7 of the Charter guarantees for communications. Nor does the fact that the undertaking may have instructed employees to refrain from using company systems to send personal correspondence.
Limitation of fundamental rights
As to the second question, the CJEU noted that the seizure of emails in the course of inspections at the professional or business premises of a person or company constitutes an interference with the rights laid down in Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter. However, the CJEU highlighted that those rights are not absolute rights, and limitations can be placed upon them, provided those limitations are provided for by law, respect the essence of the fundamental rights and freedoms and, subject to the principle of proportionality, are necessary and meet objectives of general interest recognised by the EU. Those criteria were considered by the General Court in Vivendi/Lagardère, in which case the interference was deemed justified.
Here, the CJEU concluded the same. The limitation on fundamental rights was provided for by Portuguese competition law and was limited in scope to the subject matter of the investigation – respecting the essence of the right to private life. Further, its aim was the detection of practices contrary to Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, in defence of undistorted competition – an objective of general interest recognised in the EU treaties, and the means were necessary and proportionate to that objective.
On the question of proportionality in particular, the CJEU recognised that seizures of documents by national competition authorities are generally subject to safeguards to guard against abuse and arbitrariness. These include the fact that the inspection itself must be duly reasoned, based on reasonable suspicions, and carried out using keywords relating to the subject matter of the investigation. NCAs also typically implement measures to ensure the security, integrity, and confidentiality of the correspondence seized.
Further, neither the provisions of EU law on the implementation of the competition rules, nor Articles 7 or 8 of the Charter, mandate that inspections be subject to prior authorisation from a court or independent administrative body. Nevertheless, in order to be compatible with Articles 7 and 8, a legal framework must be in place to assess the legality and necessity of such measures and to provide redress where necessary, in the form of a full ex-post judicial review.
In the present case, whilst the PPO’s authorisation helped ensure that the inspections were appropriate in scope and duration, the PPO was not a court, and so it was still essential for the subjects of the inspections to be able to seek a full ex-post judicial review of the disputed measures.
Significantly, the CJEU – despite not being queried on the issue – went on to express reservations regarding devices belonging to natural persons rather than the company under investigation.
In particular, it noted that where inspections require the seizure of electronic devices owned by an individual, access to the data contained in those devices must be subject to prior review by a court or an independent administrative body. This is because data on such devices is likely to be particularly sensitive, access to which may give rise to serious interference with the subjects’ Article 7 and 8 rights.
Key takeaways
The headline outcome in these cases is unsurprising, not least because it would have run counter to longstanding practice across many EU Member States for prior court authorisation to be required for all inspections of business premises. Nevertheless, alongside the General Court’s recent decision in Vivendi/Lagardère, the ruling serves to reinforce the EU Courts’ approach to balancing the protection of fundamental rights against the preservation of competition in the single market. In particular, it is the proportionality assessment that typically receives the most scrutiny by the Court.
However, while both Vivendi/Lagardère and Imagens Médicas Integradas confirm the Commission and NCAs’ broad information-gathering powers, the latter introduces a potentially significant distinction between correspondence obtained from company devices versus that obtained from personal devices – making the examination of data on the latter subject to mandatory prior court authorisation. This distinction was not present in Vivendi/Lagardère, which was exclusively concerned with personal devices (albeit in the context of requests for information by the Commission, rather than seizure during NCA inspections) but did not mention prior authorisation. In that case, the General Court stated that the existence of ex-post judicial review constitutes a fundamental safeguard to ensure the compatibility of the limitation in question with Article 7.
Although this distinction featured only in the CJEU’s reasoning and not the (legally binding) operative part of the ruling, as a clear statement from the Grand Chamber of the CJEU, it is likely to be followed in future judgments.
Bringing the two rulings together, it seems that although private devices will be subject to inspections where they have been used for business purposes, competition authorities will need to implement additional safeguards before they can actually examine the data on those devices.
Authors
Associate (Australian Qualified)
Related topics
In-house CounselCompetition/Antitrust
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