Supreme Court, Criminal, R.V., P.03.1427.N/1, February 3, 2004

The Supreme Court reviewed the application of the exemptions from liability established in the e-commerce Directive, as implemented by Article 20 of Law of March, 11 2003 related to certain aspects of services of the information society. The exemptions would cover over only cases where the activity of the information society service provider is (i) limited to the technical process of operating and giving access to a communication network (ii) over which information made available by third parties is transmitted or temporarily stored, (iii) for the sole purpose of making the transmission more efficient. (iv) This activity must be of a mere technical, automatic and passive nature, which implies that the information society service provider has neither knowledge of nor control over the information which is transmitted or stored. In the case at hand, the operator managed a website where third parties with his assistance could post unlawful hyperlinks. The Court stated that no safe harbour exemptions applied to this case.