Today, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its much-anticipated decision in the Schrems II case. As we analyze in detail in an earlier blog post, the ECJ’s decision invalidates Privacy Shield while leaving Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) formally intact – although relying on SCCs may become more complicated than in the past. A number […]
Max Schrems Decision
Schrems 2.0: CJEU invalidates EU-US Privacy Shield and emphasizes exporter obligations when using Standard Contractual Clauses
Executive Summary Today, the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) handed down its long-awaited judgment in the ‘Schrems 2.0’ case (Facebook Ireland and Schrems (Case C-311/18)), about the validity of two means of legitimizing transfers of personal data outside the EEA under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’)[1]. In somewhat of a […]
Schrems 2.0: Standard Contractual Clauses Declared Valid by EU Advocate General
The Advocate General’s Opinion of December 19, 2019 deemed valid the Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) adopted by the European Commission for the transfer of personal data from controllers to processors. Currently, many companies rely on SCCs as a mechanism for transferring personal data from the EU to non-EU countries in compliance with the GDPR. […]
Peter Swire’s Op-ed: Schrems II Ruling Could Rupture Trans-Atlantic Data Flows
Prof. Peter Swire, Elizabeth and Thomas Holder Chair at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business and Senior Counsel at Alston & Bird, recently published an opinion piece, first in French in Le Monde, and then in English in the European Law Blog, with the title “the US, China, and Case 311/18 on Standard Contractual […]
ECJ Rules against Schrems Class Action, Sets Up Jurisdictional Questions for GDPR Class Actions
In late 2015, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its initial Schrems decision, invalidating the EU/US Safe Harbor and leading to important developments in the rules for transferring personal data from the EU to the US. Since that decision, Mr. Schrems has pursued two further legal proceedings in the EU. The first involves Mr. Schrems’ challenge in […]