CJEU Has Declared The "Safe Harbor" Regime For Data Transfers To The US Invalid

On 6 October 2015, the CJEU (case no. C-362/14) has declared the Commission's 2000 decision on Safe Harbor concerning the transfer of personal data from the EU to the USA to be invalid, with immediate effect. The CJEU has also held that the existence of any Commission decision that a third country ensures an adequate level of protection (which applies, for example, to Argentina, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Switzerland and Uruguay) cannot reduce the powers of national data protection authorities, opening up the possibility of future challenges to those adequacy findings as well.

This CJEU judgment has wide ramifications for German companies that transfer their customer or employee data to the U.S. relying on the Safe Harbor principles. Such transfer is now prohibited. German companies must quickly find and implement alternative ways to legitimise the transfer such as standard contractual clauses adopted by the Commission (Model Clauses) or Binding Corporate Rules