ECJ: incumbent operators can become a one-stop shop for rival directory-service providers...but not on a cost-oriented basis

This is the practical result of the decision rendered today ... combined with a previous decision from February.

In its DT decision (case C‑543/09) rendered today, the Court of Justice ruled that the EU telecom framework is not precluding national legislation from requiring telecoms firms to provide data not only from their own subscribers but also data held on third-party subscribers, to directory-services operators.

This ruling echoes another ruling of the Court of last February (in Case C-16/10 The Number Conduit) that considered that imposing a cost-oriented obligation for providing access to such assembled third party data would exceed the power conferred by the EU framework directive.

The conclusion of the Court in both cases are reproduced below:

I. Case C-543/09

1. Article 25(2) of Directive 2002/22/EC of the European Universal Service Directive)must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which undertakings assigning telephone numbers to end users must make available to undertakings whose activity consists in providing publicly available directory enquiry services and directories not only data relating to their own subscribers but also data in their possession relating to subscribers of third-party undertakings.

2. Article 12 of Directive 2002/58/EC of the Directive on privacy and electronic communications must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which an undertaking publishing public directories must pass personal data in its possession relating to subscribers of other telephone service providers to a third-party undertaking whose activity consists in publishing a printed or electronic public directory or making such directories obtainable through directory enquiry services, and under which the passing on of those data is not conditional on renewed consent from the subscribers, provided, however, that those subscribers have been informed, before the first inclusion of their data in a public directory, of the purpose of that directory and of the fact that those data could be communicated to another telephone service provider and that it is guaranteed that those data will not, once passed on, be used for purposes other than those for which they were collected with a view to their first publication.

II. C-16/10:

Article 8(1) of Directive 2002/22/EC of the Universal Service Directive permits Member States, where they decide to designate one or more undertakings under that provision to guarantee the provision of universal service, or different elements of universal service, as identified in Articles 4 to 7 and 9(2) of that same directive, to impose on such undertakings only the specific obligations, provided for in the directive, which are associated with the provision of that service, or elements thereof, to end‑users by the designated undertakings themselves.