Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 9 March 2017 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Corte suprema di cassazione — Italy) — Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura di Lecce v Salvatore Manni
(Case C-398/15) 1
(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Personal data — Protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data — Directive 95/46/EC — Article 6(1)(e) — Data subject to disclosure in the companies register — First Directive 68/151/EEC — Article 3 — Winding-up of the company concerned — Restriction of access to that data by third parties)
Language of the case: Italian
Referring court
Corte suprema di cassazione
Parties to the main proceedings
Applicants: Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura di Lecce
Defendant: Salvatore Manni
Operative part of the judgment
Article 6(1)(e), Article 12(b) and subparagraph (a) of the first paragraph of Article 14 of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, read in conjunction with Article 3 of the First Council Directive 68/151/EEC of 9 March 1968 on co-ordination of safeguards which, for the protection of the interests of members and others, are required by Member States of companies within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 58 of the Treaty, with a view to making such safeguards equivalent throughout the Community, as amended by Directive 2003/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2003, must be interpreted as meaning that, as EU law currently stands, it is for the Member States to determine whether the natural persons referred to in Article 2(1)(d) and (j) of that directive may apply to the authority responsible for keeping, respectively, the central register, commercial register or companies register to determine, on the basis of a case-by-case assessment, if it is exceptionally justified, on compelling legitimate grounds relating to their particular situation, to limit, on the expiry of a sufficiently long period after the dissolution of the company concerned, access to personal data relating to them, entered in that register, to third parties who can demonstrate a specific interest in consulting that data.
____________1 OJ C 354, 26.10.2015.