Top EU court backs antitrust regulators' powers to seize employee emails

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, July 16 (Reuters) - Europe's top court on Thursday endorsed antitrust regulators' powers to seize employee emails during dawn raids, saying that they are justified in order to preserve competition.

The case underscores a fight between an increasing number of companies that complain about regulatory overreach during EU antitrust investigations and enforcers looking to investigate anti-competitive practices, with dawn raids an important tool to unearth potentially incriminating data.

The ruling by the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerned dawn raids carried out by the Portuguese competition regulator at some companies where they seized emails exchanged by employees and managers.

The companies subsequently challenged the legality of those seizures before a Portuguese court, arguing that the seizure of business emails on the basis of a warrant issued by the public prosecutor and without prior authorisation by a court infringed on their EU fundamental rights.

The Portuguese court then sought guidance from the CJEU.

"EU law does not preclude the seizure, without prior authorisation issued by a court, of business emails exchanged between the employees and managers of undertakings subject to an investigation," the CJEU said.

Judges said any impact on privacy and civil rights was outweighed by the general interest of preserving undistorted competition, adding that such seizures are in general subject to procedural safeguards.

The Portuguese court will now rule on the merits of the case based on the CJEU judgement.

The cases are C-258/23 Imagens Médicas Integradas, C-259/23 Synlabhealth II and C-260/23 SIBS Sociedade Gestora de Participações Sociais and Others.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)