In the judgment Case no. C‑507/23 of Octo­ber 4, 2024 – one of many recent rulings – the ECJ has once again dealt with que­sti­ons of compensation.

Fol­lo­wing ear­lier rulings, he first sta­tes that a Vio­la­ti­on against a GDPR in its­elf does not yet lead to any dama­ge:

29 In the light of the fore­go­ing, the ans­wer to the first que­sti­on is that Artic­le 82(1) GDPR, read in con­junc­tion with Artic­le 8(1) of the Char­ter, must be inter­pre­ted as mea­ning that a breach of the pro­vi­si­ons of that regu­la­ti­on is not in its­elf suf­fi­ci­ent to con­sti­tu­te ‘dama­ge’ within the mea­ning of Artic­le 82(1) GDPR.

More exci­ting was the que­sti­on of whe­ther a Sor­ry for an error alre­a­dy ade­qua­te repla­ce­ment of non-mate­ri­al dama­ge. The ECJ affirms this:

31 It is sett­led case-law that […] it is for the natio­nal legal system […] to deter­mi­ne the pro­ce­du­ral rules gover­ning reme­dies […], pro­vi­ded, howe­ver, that, in mat­ters gover­ned by Euro­pean Uni­on law, tho­se rules are not less favorable than tho­se gover­ning simi­lar mat­ters gover­ned by natio­nal law (Prin­ci­ple of equi­va­lence), and that they do not ren­der prac­ti­cal­ly impos­si­ble or exce­s­si­ve­ly dif­fi­cult the exer­cise of rights con­fer­red by Uni­on law (Prin­ci­ple of effec­ti­ve­ness) […].
32 […] the natio­nal courts must, for this pur­po­se, app­ly the natio­nal rules of each Mem­ber Sta­te on the ext­ent of finan­cial compensation […].
33 As regards com­pli­ance with the prin­ci­ple of equi­va­lence, the Court has no indi­ca­ti­on that that prin­ci­ple could have a con­cre­te effect in the dis­pu­te in the main proceedings.
34 As regards com­pli­ance with the prin­ci­ple of effec­ti­ve­ness, […] requi­res that the cri­te­ria for the assess­ment of […] dama­ges be deter­mi­ned within the legal order of each Mem­ber Sta­te, and that such dama­ges be com­ple­te and effective […].
35 The Court has also reco­gnized that, in the absence of serious­ness of the harm suf­fe­r­ed by the per­son con­cer­ned, a natio­nal court may com­pen­sa­te that per­son by awar­ding him a minor dama­ges pro­vi­ded that the small amount of dama­ges award­ed is sui­ta­ble to com­pen­sa­te the dama­ge in full […].
36 Artic­le 82(1) GDPR also does not pre­clude an apo­lo­gy from con­sti­tu­ting inde­pen­dent or sup­ple­men­ta­ry com­pen­sa­ti­on for non-mate­ri­al dama­ge […], pro­vi­ded that such a form of com­pen­sa­ti­on com­plies with the prin­ci­ples of equi­va­lence and effec­ti­ve­ness, in par­ti­cu­lar sin­ce it must make it pos­si­ble to ful­ly com­pen­sa­te for the non-mate­ri­al dama­ge spe­ci­fi­cal­ly cau­sed by the inf­rin­ge­ment of this Regulation […].
37 In light of the abo­ve, the ans­wer to the second que­sti­on is that Artic­le 82(1) GDPR must be inter­pre­ted as mea­ning that an apo­lo­gy may con­sti­tu­te ade­qua­te com­pen­sa­ti­on for non-mate­ri­al dama­ge on the basis of this pro­vi­si­on […].

Sin­ce the Swiss DPA does not con­sider imma­te­ri­al dama­ge to be com­pensable or dama­ge (with excep­ti­ons not rele­vant here and sub­ject to satis­fac­tion), the ruling is not pre­ju­di­cial for Switz­er­land, but com­pen­sa­ti­on for real dama­ge is also reco­gnized under Swiss law. Howe­ver, the case shows that honest com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on can have a risk-redu­cing effect.

As pre­vious­ly, the ECJ also sta­tes that “the atti­tu­de and moti­ves” of the per­son respon­si­ble can­not be a fac­tor in the assess­ment of com­pen­sa­ti­on, becau­se it is a mat­ter of com­pen­sa­ti­on and not punishment.