Compensation for non-material damage under Article 82 GDPR: A review of Case C-300/21
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X231208835 |
| Author | Shu Li |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
Compensation for non-material
damage under Article 82 GDPR:
A review of Case C-300/21
Shu Li*
Abstract
The Court of Justice of the European Union delivered a decision in Case C-300/21 to address
three questions on how to compensate a data subject for the non-material damage suffered
from a violation of GDPR provisions. First, infringement by itself does not give rise to compensa-
tion. Actual damage must be demonstrated by the data subject. Second, the right to compensation
is not limited to non-material damage that reaches a certain threshold of seriousness. Third, since
the GDPR does not provide an explicit guideline for assessing damages, it falls to Member States to
establish such a criterion. The criterion, nevertheless, must comply with the principle of equiva-
lence and effectiveness. The judgment, together with the Advocate General’s opinion, touches
upon several fundamental issues at the intersection of risk, harm and tort damage.
Keywords
General Data Protection Regulation, Article 82, non-material damage, CJEU, equivalence and
effectiveness
1. Introduction
The General Data Protection Regulation
1
(GDPR) provides a fully harmonized legal framework of
protecting personal data. Regarding the legal consequence of violating GDPR provisions, it not
only provides a public enforcement mechanism that authorities could use to punish data controllers
* Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Corresponding author:
Shu Li, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
E-mail: li@law.eur.nl
1. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural
persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/
46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), [2016] OJ L 119.
Case Note
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2023, Vol. 30(3) 335–345
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/1023263X231208835
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