The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Case C-517\/23 | Apothekerkammer Nordrhein examined the compatibility of German legislation with EU law regarding the advertising of prescription medicine. The key finding of the CJEU is that Member States may allow certain advertising measures to promote the purchase of unspecified prescription medicine in the form of price reductions or fixed payments, while at the same time, they may prohibit other forms of advertising, such as vouchers for the purchase of other products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DocMorris, a Dutch mail-order pharmacy, has been conducting various advertising campaigns in Germany since 2012 to promote the purchase of prescription medicine. These campaigns included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the request of the Professional Association of Pharmacists of the North Rhine region, the Regional Court in Cologne issued an order prohibiting DocMorris\u2019s advertising campaigns. Since some of these orders were later annulled, DocMorris is now seeking compensation of approximately \u20ac18.5 million before German courts, arguing that the issued orders were unjustified from the outset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The German Federal Court of Justice referred a question to the CJEU on whether German law, which permits advertising in the form of discounts and fixed payments while prohibiting other advertising practices, is compatible with Directive 2001\/83\/EC on the Community Code relating to medicinal products for human use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CJEU ruled that the directive does not cover advertising measures that promote the purchase of unspecified prescription medicine through discounts, fixed payments, or rewards whose exact amount is not predetermined. Such measures only influence the choice of pharmacy and do not promote the consumption of medicine. Once a patient receives a prescription, the only remaining choice is which pharmacy to purchase the medicine from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, the directive does not preclude such advertising measures, provided they take the form of a specific sum of money or a method for calculating that sum, from being lawful under German law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CJEU emphasized that Member States may prohibit, on the basis of other EU law provisions, particularly for consumer protection reasons, advertising measures that promote the purchase of prescription medicine with rewards whose amount is not known in advance. Such a prohibition prevents consumers from overestimating the value of the reward, which could lead to biased decisions when choosing a pharmacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CJEU found that the directive applies to advertising measures offering vouchers for the purchase of non-prescription medicine or health and care products. Such vouchers encourage the consumption of non-prescription medicine by treating it the same as other products, thereby diverting consumers from objectively assessing the need to take that medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, the directive does not preclude national laws from prohibiting such advertising measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CJEU’s ruling in Case C-517\/23 | Apothekerkammer Nordrhein confirms that Member States have a certain degree of discretion in regulating the advertising of prescription medicine. While they may allow discounts and fixed payments, they may also prohibit other forms of promotional activities, particularly vouchers for purchasing other products and rewards whose exact value is not predetermined. This decision has significant implications for the pharmacy sector and the regulation of medicinal advertising in EU Member States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* Finding yourself in need of legal services in Slovenia and looking for a law firm in Ljubljana, consider contacting us using our contact details as published on our\u00a0web page<\/a>. A qualified law firm can provide you with legal advice and representation \u2013 helping you navigate the complexities of Slovenian law and ensuring that your rights are protected. You can find more information on legal acts in Slovenia on the\u00a0official pages of the Slovenian\u00a0<\/a>government<\/a>. More legal topics can be found on our law firm\u00a0publications page<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Advertising of Prescription Medicine: Permitted and Prohibited Practices under EU Law The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Case C-517\/23 | Apothekerkammer Nordrhein examined the compatibility of German legislation with EU law regarding the advertising of prescription medicine. The key finding of the CJEU is that Member States may allow certain advertising […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[185,12,114,117,139,45,142,116,119,113,115],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cjeu","tag-immigration-lawyer","tag-law-firm-in-slovenia","tag-law-firm-ljubljana","tag-law-firm-slovenia","tag-lawyer-in-slovenia","tag-lawyer-slovenia","tag-legal-services-slovenia","tag-slovenian-civil-law-firm","tag-slovenian-law-firm","tag-slovenian-lawyer"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":{"landsacpe":false,"list":false,"medium":false,"full":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833,"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.odb.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}