Information Note on the Court’s case-law 41

April 2002

Société Colas Est and Others v. France - 37971/97

Judgment 16.4.2002 [Section II]

Article 8

Article 8-1

Respect for home

Extension of the concept of “home” to a company headquarters, offices and professional premises

Visits to company premises and seizure of documents on the basis of the 1945 ordonnance on investigation, prosecution and suppression of offenc es against economic laws: violation

Facts : As part of an administrative inquiry into the conduct of public road-building companies in connection with local contracts, inspectors from the Office of Fair Trading carried out simultaneous raids on the principa l and local offices of the applicant companies, without prior authorisation from the management, and seized numerous documents. They subsequently carried our additional investigations in order to gather statements. The inspectors were acting under a 1945 o rder on the identification, prosecution and elimination of breaches of financial legislation, which did not require any judicial authorisation for or supervision of these operations. On the basis of the documents seized, the applicant companies were prosec uted for engaging in prohibited practices. The Competitions Board found that they had engaged in such practices and imposed financial penalties of twelve million francs, four million francs and six million francs respectively. In support of their appeals, the applicant companies unsuccessfully challenged the validity of the operations carried out by the inspectors with judicial authorisation. Eventually, the financial penalties imposed on the first two companies were reduced.

Law : Article 8 – As a continuat ion of its dynamic approach to interpreting the Convention, concerning the notion of "home" and the rights granted to companies, it was time to recognise that in certain circumstances the rights enshrined in this article could be interpreted as including a company's right to respect for its principal office, local offices and commercial premises. In this case, the raids carried out by the inspectors from the Office of Fair Trading on the principal and local offices of the applicant companies for the purpose s of seizing thousands of documents amounted to interference in these companies' right to respect for their home. However, the visits and seizures had had a statutory basis and legitimate aims, namely the country's economic well-being and the prevention of criminal offences. As carried out by the authorities, these operations had constituted intrusions into the applicants' "homes". Although the disputed raids on the applicants' homes might have been justified by the need for large-scale operations to avoid the disappearance or concealment of evidence of anti-competitive practices, the relevant legislation and practices should still have offered appropriate and adequate safeguards against abuse. In fact, based on the 1945 order then applicable, the relevant d epartment had had very broad powers that allowed it to determine, acting alone, the expediency, number, duration and scale of such operations. Moreover, these operations had taken place without any prior warrant issued by a judge and with no police officer in attendance. In these circumstances, while accepting that the right of interference might be more extensive in the case of a company's commercial premises, given the procedures described above the disputed operations conducted in the competition field c ould not be considered to be strictly proportionate to their legitimate aims.

Conclusion: violation (unanimously).

Article 41 – the Court granted each applicant EUR 5 000 for non-pecuniary damage and certain sums for costs and expenses.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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