Referral C-723/26 (Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband, 1 Jul 2026)

1. Is a consumer organisation bringing model declaratory action under German law, in which it is seeking, against the defendant in connection with 'data scraping', a declaratory judgment that the factual and legal conditions are met and on the amount of compensation to which German Facebook users are entitled under Article 82(1) GDPR, exercising within the meaning of Article 80(1) of the GDPR the right of users to receive compensation referred to in Article 82 GDPR?

2. If the Court answers the first question in the negative: Would such model declaratory action then be readily compatible with the GDPR?

3. If the Court answers the first question in the affirmative:
a) Is express statutory authorisation under German law required in order to bring such model declaratory action?
b) Is it compatible with Article 80(1) of the GDPR for the organisation to have brought the model declaratory action in its own name and without prior instruction by the users, given that users are able to have their claims entered, up to three weeks after the conclusion of the oral hearing, in a state-administered register of representative actions, which is opened once the action has been brought, and which would result in the courts being bound by the declaratory judgments made in the model declaratory action in the users' individual proceedings against the defendant?

4. Can international and territorial jurisdiction for the model declaratory action referred to in question 1 against the defendant, which is based in Ireland, be derived from Article 7(2) of the Brussels I Regulation?

5. If the Court answers the fourth question in the affirmative: Must Article 7(2) of the Brussels I Regulation be interpreted in accordance with the judgment of the Court of 2 December 2025 in Case C-34/24 as meaning that any court of the Federal Republic of Germany, which has substantive jurisdiction to hear model declaratory action referred to in question 1, also has territorial jurisdiction for hearing this action in respect of all German Facebook users, irrespective of their domicile or place of habitual residence?

6. If the Court answers the fifth question in the negative: Would the referring court have territorial jurisdiction at least in respect of users from its judicial district? Should the users' domicile or place of habitual residence be taken as the basis for this? Would the circumstances prevailing at the current time or at the time at which the data scraping took place be relevant in this regard?