03/02/2020
CURIA - Documents
The register shall be kept by the office of the companies register under the supervision of a judge appointed by the
president of the court.
The register shall be publicly available.’
Article 8(1) and (2) of legge n. 580 — Riordinamento delle camere di commercio, industria, artigianato e
agricoltura (Law No 580 on the reorganisation of the chambers of commerce, industry, craft trades and agriculture)
of 29 December 1993 (Ordinary Supplement to GURI No 7 of 11 January 1994), provides that it is the responsibility
of the chambers of commerce, industry, craft trades and agriculture to keep the register.
Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica n. 581 — Regolamento di attuazione dell’articolo 8 della legge 29 dicembre
1993, n. 580, in materia di istituzione del registro delle imprese di cui all’articolo 2188 del codice civile (Decree
No 581 of the President of the Republic, laying down implementing regulations for Article 8 of Law No 580, of
29 December 1993, concerning the establishment of the companies register referred to in Article 2188 of the Civil
Code) of 7 December 1995 (GURI No 28 of 3 February 1996), governs certain details relating to the companies
register.
Directive 95/46 has been transposed into Italian law by decreto legislativo n. 196 — Codice in materia di
protezione dei dati personali (Legislative Decree No 196 on the personal data protection code) of 30 June 2003
(Ordinary Supplement to GURI No 174 of 29 July 2003).
The dispute in the main proceedings and the questions referred for a preliminary ruling
Mr Manni is the sole director of Italiana Costruzioni Srl, a building company which was awarded a contract for the
construction of a tourist complex.
By an action commenced on 12 December 2007, Mr Manni brought proceedings against the Lecce Chamber of
Commerce, claiming that the properties in that complex were not selling because it was apparent from the
companies register that he had been the sole director and liquidator of Immobiliare e Finanziaria Salentina Srl
(‘Immobiliare Salentina’), which had been declared insolvent in 1992 and struck off the companies register,
following liquidation proceedings, on 7 July 2005.
In that action, Mr Manni alleged that the personal data concerning him, which appear in the companies register,
had been processed by a company specialised in the collection and processing of market information and in risk
assessment (‘rating’), and that, notwithstanding a request to remove it from the register, the Lecce Chamber of
Commerce has not done so.
Mr Manni therefore sought an order requiring the Lecce Chamber of Commerce to erase, anonymise or block the
data linking him to the liquidation of Immobiliare Salentina, together with an order that that chamber compensate
him for the damage he suffered by reason of the injury to his reputation.
By judgment of 1 August 2011, the Tribunale di Lecce (Court of Lecce, Italy) upheld that claim, ordering the Lecce
Chamber of Commerce to anonymise the data linking Mr Manni to the liquidation of Immobiliare Salentina and to
pay compensation for the damage suffered by him, assessed at EUR 2 000, together with interest and costs.
The Tribunale di Lecce (Court of Lecce) considered that ‘it is not permissible for entries in the register which link
the name of an individual to a critical phase in the life of the company (such as its liquidation) to be permanent,
unless there is a specific general interest in their retention and disclosure’. In the absence of any provision in the
Civil Code laying down a maximum period of registration, that court held that, ‘after an appropriate period’ from
the conclusion of the liquidation, and after the company has been removed from the register, stating the name of
the person who was sole director of that company at the time of the liquidation ceased to be necessary and useful,
for the purposes of Legislative Decree No 196, and the public interest in a ‘historical memory’ of the existence of
the company and the difficulties it experienced [could] to a great extent be just as well effected by means of
anonymous data’.
The Lecce Chamber of Commerce brought an appeal against that judgment before the Corte suprema di
cassazione (Court of Cassation, Italy), which decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to
the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling:
Must the principle of keeping personal data in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer
than is necessary for the purposes for which the data were collected or for which they are further processed, laid
down in Article 6(1)(e) of Directive 95/46, transposed by Legislative Decree No 196 of 30 June 2003, take
precedence over and, therefore, preclude the system of disclosure established by means of the companies register
provided for by Directive 68/151 and by national law in Article 2188 of the Civil Code and Article 8 of Law No 580 of
29 December 1993, in so far as it is a requirement of that system that anyone may, at any time, obtain the data
relating to individuals in those registers?
Consequently, is it permissible under Article 3 of Directive 68/151, by way of derogation from the principles that
there should be no time limit and that anyone may consult the data published in the companies register, for the
data no longer to be subject to “disclosure”, in both those regards, but to be available for only a limited period and
only to certain recipients, on the basis of a case-by-case assessment by the data manager?’
Consideration of the questions referred
By its questions, which should be considered together, the referring court asks, essentially, whether Article 3 of
Directive 68/151 and Article 6(1)(e) of Directive 95/46 must be interpreted as meaning that Member States may,
and indeed must, allow individuals, covered by Article 2(1)(d) and (j) of Directive 68/151, to request the authority
responsible for maintaining the companies register to limit, after a certain period has elapsed from the dissolution
of the company concerned and on the basis of a case-by-case assessment, access to personal data concerning
them and entered in that register.
It should be noted at the outset that the case at issue in the main proceedings and the questions referred to the
Court for a preliminary ruling do not concern the subsequent processing of the data at issue in this case by a
specialised rating company, referred to in paragraph 25 of the present judgment, but rather the accessibility of
such data held in the companies register by third parties.
curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=188750&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=1151671
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