Paul v Germany

Paul v Germany [2004] ECR I-09425 is a European Court of Justice case regarding the civil liability of bank regulators in a case where those regulators were alleged to have failed in their duty. As of November 2008, it is the only ECJ case to consider the Deposit Guarantee Directive (94/19/EC), which was one of the causes of the Icesave dispute between Iceland and the United Kingdom in late 2008.

Paul v Germany
European Court of Justice
Submitted June 17 2002 Decided October 12 2004
Full case name	Peter Paul, Cornelia Sonnen-Lütte and Christel Mörkens v Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Case	C-222/02
CelexID	62002J0222
Case type	Reference for a preliminary ruling
Chamber	Full court
Nationality of parties	Germany
Procedural history	Bundesgerichtshof, Beschluß vom 16 May 2002 (III ZR 48/01)
Court composition
Judge-Rapporteur Claus Christian Gulmann
Advocate General Christine Stix-Hackl
Instruments cited
Brasserie du pêcheur and Factortame [1996] ECR I-1029; Dillenkofer and Others [1996] ECR I-4845; Evans [2003] ECR I-14447; Directive 94/19/EC, Arts. 3 & 7; Directive 77/780/EEC; Directive 89/299/EEC; Directive 89/646/EEC
Keywords
Credit institutions – Deposit-guarantee schemes – Directive 94/19/EC – Directives 77/780/EEC, 89/299/EEC and 89/646/EEC – Supervisory measures by the competent authority for the purposes of protecting depositors – Liability of the supervisory authorities for losses resulting from defective supervision

Judgment

The Court ruled that the various Directives on banking supervision did not confer rights on individuals, and so individual depositors were not entitled to damages from banking supervisors if those Directives were breached. The only individual right guaranteed under European Union law was the minimum deposit insurance, covering the first 20 000 euros.

See also

• EU law