Yards Deurwaardersdiensten B.V – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2022)

The Dutch financial regulator, Bureau Financieel Toezicht (BFT), provided a journalist with a copy of a decision and an accompanied letter. The decision and letter had been issued by the Chamber of Bailiffs (kamer voor gerechtsdeurwaarders) in a disciplinary proceeding against a company. The BFT provided the journalist with the documents without anonymizing them. The company and two individuals (the plaintiffs) complained that this was a data breach under the GDPR. The plaintiffs demanded that it should be reported to the Dutch DPA Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (AP). In December 2019, the BFT informed the plaintiffs that there was no need to report the incident as a data breach under the GDPR. The plaintiffs complained. In January 2020, the BFT ruled that the complaint was inadmissible, meaning that the plaintiffs didn't have the right to have the action reviewed by a court. The plaintiffs appealed the BFTs decision to declare the complaint inadmissible. In June 2020, the District Court of Midden-Nederland ruled on the appeal. The District Court reversed the BFT's January 2020 decision and ordered the BFT to issue a new decision on the objection. In addition, the District Court ruled that, as an administrative court, it didn't have jurisdiction to decide on compensation issues. The applicants appealed the District Court's decision to the Supreme Administrative Court (Raad van State). BFT filed an incidential appeal, which is an appeal filed after an opposing party has already filed an appeal. The Supreme Administrative Court held a hearing in October 2021. At the hearing, it became clear that the plaintiffs and BFT now agree that it was wrong to disclose the documents to the journalist without anonymizing them. The Supreme Administrative Court now had to answer three questions: 1) Were there any legal remedies against the BFT's decision? 2) Does an administrative court have jurisdiction to decide on applications for compensation? 3) Should the request for compensat