Link https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-12/cp200156en.pdf

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Court of Justice of the European Union

PRESS RELEASE No 156/20

Luxembourg, 8 December 2020

Judgment in Case C-584/19 Staatsanwaltschaft Wien/A. and Others Unlike a European arrest warrant, a European investigation order may be adopted by the public prosecutor’s office of a Member State exposed to the risk of being subject to individual instructions from the executive

The fundamental rights of the person who is the subject of the European investigation order are sufficiently protected both at the stage of issuing that order and at the stage of its execution in another Member State A criminal investigation for fraud was initiated against A and several unidentified persons by the Staatsanwaltschaft Hamburg (Public Prosecutor’s Office, Hamburg, Germany). Those persons were all suspected of having, in July 2018, falsified thirteen bank transfer orders using unlawfully obtained data, thus enabling the probable transfer of around € 9 800 to a bank account opened in A’s name with an Austrian bank. In May 2019, during the investigation of that case, the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office issued a European investigation order, 1 which it forwarded to the Staatsanwaltschaft Wien (Public Prosecutor’s Office, Vienna, Austria), and by which it requested the latter to send it copies of the bank statements in question for the relevant period. However, under the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure, the Austrian public prosecutor’s office may not order such an investigative measure without prior court authorisation. Accordingly, at the end of May 2019, the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office requested the Landesgericht für Strafsachen Wien (Regional Court in Criminal Matters, Vienna, Austria) to authorise that investigative measure.