Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case TÜV Rheinland LGA Products and Allianz IARD

Date of article: 11/06/2020

Daily News of: 12/06/2020

Country:  EUROPE

Author:

Article language: en

Link https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-06/cp200069en.pdf

Languages bg es cs da de et el en fr hr it lv lt hu mt nl pl pt ro sk sl fi sv

Court of Justice of the European Union PRESS RELEASE No 69/20 Luxembourg,11 June 2020 
Judgment in Case C-581/18 RB v TÜV Rheinland LGA Products GmbH and Allianz IARD SA
 
The general prohibition of discrimination on grounds of nationality cannot be the basis for challenging a clause, contained in a contract concluded between a manufacturer of medical devices and an insurance company, that places a territorial limit on civil liability insurance coverage
 
In the judgment TÜV Rheinland LGA Products and Allianz IARD (C-581/18), delivered on 11 June 2020, the Grand Chamber of the Court held that the general prohibition of discrimination on grounds of nationality1 is not applicable to a clause, stipulated in a contract between an insurance company and a manufacturer of medical devices, limiting the geographical extent of the insurance coverage against civil liability arising from those devices to harm that has occurred in the territory of a single Member State, since such a situation does not fall, as EU law currently stands, within the scope of application of EU law.
In 2006 a German citizen had inserted in Germany, where she is resident, breast implants manufactured by Poly Implant Prothèses SA (‘PIP’), a company established in France. Since 1997 PIP had commissioned TÜV Rheinland LGA Products GmbH (‘TÜV Rheinland’), in accordance with Directive 93/42 concerning medical devices2 to undertake an assessment of the quality system put in place for the design, manufacture and final inspection of the breast implants that PIP was producing. Following a number of inspections at the premises of PIP, TÜV Rheinland had approved the quality system and renewed the CE examination certification guaranteeing the conformity of those implants with the requirements of that directive.

 

Read more