June 18, 2026 | Civil Lawsuit Ruling | Data Governance

On 18 June 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a preliminary ruling in Case C-414/24, brought on referral from Austria's Administrative Court. The case arose from a complaint lodged by a physician with Austria's data protection authority seeking erasure of personal data published on a physician-rating platform operated by D GmbH. The data protection authority had rejected the complaint on the grounds that civil proceedings concerning the same subject matter were already pending before an Austrian court. The CJEU ruled that Article 77(1) and Article 79(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation) preclude a supervisory authority from rejecting a complaint under Article 77(1) solely on the ground that a judicial remedy under Article 79(1) with the same object has been lodged previously, even where the decision in those judicial proceedings has not yet become final. The CJEU held that the two remedies are independent and may be exercised concurrently, and that outright rejection risks depriving a data subject of effective protection where judicial proceedings are dismissed on procedural grounds without a ruling on the merits. The CJEU noted that Member States may instead introduce a suspension mechanism allowing the supervisory authority to pause its examination pending a final judicial decision.