Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (Italy) - 10043600

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Garante per la protezione dei dati personali - 10043600
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Authority: Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (Italy)
Jurisdiction: Italy
Relevant Law: Article 12(3) GDPR
Article 15 GDPR
Article 15(4) GDPR
Type: Complaint
Outcome: Upheld
Started: 06.04.2022
Decided: 20.06.2024
Published:
Fine: 10,000 EUR
Parties: TS Food Processing s.r.l.
National Case Number/Name: 10043600
European Case Law Identifier: n/a
Appeal: Unknown
Original Language(s): Italian
Original Source: Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (in IT)
Initial Contributor: fb

The DPA fined a controller €10,000 after it failed to act on an access request. The DPA found that, while the protection of trade secrets falls into the scope of the exemption in Article 15(4) GDPR, this does not justify not providing access at all.

English Summary

Facts

The data subject filed an access request with his former employer (the controller), asking to get a copy of all his personal data contained in the laptop provided to him by the controller.

The controller refused to provide access to the data subject, arguing that this could lead to the communication of trade secrets.

Therefore, on 6 April 2022, the data subject filed a complaint with the DPA.

The controller argued that the access request was too generic and that the data subject should specify which files he would like to access. Moreover, it proposed to have a meeting with the data subject to choose together which files should be granted access to. Finally, it highlighted that the data subject was not collaborating with it to find a possible day to have such a meeting.

Holding

First of all, the DPA noted that the controller had not acted on the data subject’s request for almost 2 years and acted only after the data subject filed a complaint.

Secondly, it pointed out that the only limitation to the right of access is contained in Article 15(4) GDPR, which states that this right should not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others. It stated that, generally speaking, this could also encompass the interest of the controller to protect its trade secrets.

However, the DPA held that this cannot lead to a complete refusal to act on the request. On the contrary, the controller should have balanced the two rights and adopted the appropriate measures to however act on the request, such as redacting the trade-sensitive information from the documents (see also EDPB Guidelines 01/2022 on data subject rights - Right of access, paras. 165-174).

Therefore, the DPA held that the controller could not rely on Article 15(4) GDPR to completely deny access to the data and found a violation of Article 12(3) GDPR in combination with Article 15 GDPR.

On these grounds, the DPA issued a fine of €10,000.

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English Machine Translation of the Decision

The decision below is a machine translation of the Italian original. Please refer to the Italian original for more details.

[web doc. no. 10043600]

Provision of 20 June 2024

Register of provisions
no. 380 of 20 June 2024

THE GUARANTOR FOR THE PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA

IN today's meeting, attended by Prof. Pasquale Stanzione, President, Prof. Ginevra Cerrina Feroni, Vice President, Dr. Agostino Ghiglia and Attorney Guido Scorza, members, and Councillor Fabio Mattei, Secretary General;

HAVING SEEN Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 (hereinafter, “Regulation”);

HAVING SEEN the Personal Data Protection Code, containing provisions for the adaptation of the national legal system to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (Legislative Decree 30 June 2003, no. 196, as amended by Legislative Decree 10 August 2018, no. 101, hereinafter “Code”);

HAVING SEEN the complaint submitted by Mr. XX on 06/04/2022, pursuant to art. 77 of the Regulation, which complained of a violation of the rules on the protection of personal data by TS Food Processing S.r.l.;

HAVING EXAMINED the documentation in the files;

HAVING SEEN the observations formulated by the Secretary General pursuant to art. 15 of the Regulation of the Guarantor no. 1/2000;

REPORTER Prof. Ginevra Cerrina Feroni;

WHEREAS

1. The complaint against the Company and the start of the investigation.

With the complaint submitted on 06/04/2022 and regularized on 13/06/2022, Mr. XX represented to this Authority that he had submitted a request to exercise the rights, pursuant to art. 15 of the Regulation, against TS Food Processing s.r.l. (hereinafter “the Company”), in order to “access all files and data in any form containing personal data relating to the employment relationship and stored on the personal computer available to him (…)”.

The complainant represented that, in response to this request, he received a refusal from the Company which informed him that it could not allow access because “he could well steal sensitive company data previously known to him as an employee”.

Therefore, with the note dated 06/09/2022, the Authority initiated the preliminary investigation, inviting the Company to provide observations regarding the complaint and to comply with the complainant's requests.

With the communication dated 26/09/2022, sent to the complainant and to the Authority, the Company observed that "the request is formulated in an absolutely generic manner and therefore not fulfillable" therefore asking the applicant to indicate in detail the folders and files to which he intended to access. 

An exchange of emails followed between the parties in which, on the one hand, the applicant communicated the list of personal documents still available to the Company (email dated 09/30/2022) and asked to arrange a meeting to access the data (emails dated 01/02/2023 and 01/31/2023) and, on the other hand, the Company requested the communication of the folders to be recovered and expressed its willingness to arrange an appointment in the presence of IT technicians who "validate the operations performed and draw up a report in the interest of all parties involved" (email dated 01/19/2023).

With a final communication sent to the Authority on 02/23/2023, the complainant made it known that no communication had been received from the Company regarding the possibility of accessing his personal data.

2. The initiation of the procedure.

For the above, the Office notified the Company, with a note dated 03/16/2023, of the act of initiation of the proceeding, pursuant to art. 166, paragraph 5, of the Code in relation to the violation of arts. 12, par. 3, and 15 of the Regulation.

On 04/14/2023, the Company sent its defensive documents, pursuant to art. 18 of Law no. 689/1981, with which he argued that:

- the invitation addressed to the applicant to identify exactly the files that are the subject of the request cannot be interpreted as a denial, but is "a consent that aims to protect the right of Mr. ... to access his personal data (...) but also aims to protect the equally legitimate right of the company TS Food to protect itself from the copying and/or dissemination of data that, (...) can be used to divert customers, collect information on company know-how, customer lists, estimates, etc. (...)";

- despite the communications, also sent to the Office of the Guarantor, with which the complainant requested a meeting with the Company, in fact the latter "has never been able to arrange an appointment with the company even by telephone to carry out the operations to which he had been permitted from the beginning".
Finally, with a note dated 12/12/2023, the complainant communicated to this Authority and, for information, to the Company, that he had access to his PC and consequently to all personal data (including files, electronic folders) contained therein and to the other personal documentation in the possession of the Company.

3. The outcome of the investigation and the procedure for the adoption of corrective and sanctioning measures.

Following the examination of the declarations made to the Authority during the proceedings as well as the documentation acquired, it appears that the Company, as data controller, has carried out some processing operations, relating to the complainant, which are not compliant with the regulations on the protection of personal data.

In this regard, it is highlighted that, unless the fact constitutes a more serious crime, anyone, in a proceeding before the Guarantor, falsely declares or certifies information or circumstances or produces false acts or documents is liable pursuant to art. 168 of the Code “False statements to the Guarantor and interruption of the execution of the tasks or exercise of the powers of the Guarantor”.

On the merits, it emerged that the Company did not respond to the request to exercise the rights, presented by the complainant pursuant to art. 15 of the Regulation, and that, only following the presentation of the complaint and the opening of the investigation by the Guarantor, access to the personal data and additional information relating to the employment relationship with the party was granted. Compliance therefore occurred almost two years after the deadline set by the Regulation.

With respect to the conduct of the Company, it must be noted that it delayed, for a considerable period of time (equal to approximately two years), the response to the request to exercise the rights, motivating such behavior with various justifications. Initially, in fact, access to the personal data contained in the PC was denied due to the fear that company secrets could be stolen, due to the unfair competition behaviors held by the applicant during the employment relationship (see e-mail of 04/10/2021); however, during the proceedings, this refusal was motivated by the generic nature of the request itself and the consequent impossibility of correctly identifying the personal data to be delivered (see e-mail of 26/09/2022); finally, with the defensive documents, the Company highlighted the poor cooperation of the applicant with respect to the requested fulfillment (see note of 14/04/2023).

The arguments put forward by the Company cannot in any case be evaluated positively, for the purposes of a possible justification for the lack of response. In this regard, it is noted that art. 15 of the Regulation, in regulating the right of access of the interested party, provides as the only limit that it does not infringe the rights and freedoms of others (art. 15, par. 4, of the Regulation); a further hypothesis of denial is provided for by art. 12, par. 5, of the Regulation when the requests of the interested party are "manifestly unfounded or excessive".

It is useful, however, to specify that the restriction to the right of access provided for by art. 15, par. 4, of the Regulation also refers to "industrial and business secrets and intellectual property. However, such considerations should not lead to a denial to provide the interested party with all the information", taking into account the amount of information concerning the interested party that is processed by the controller (see Cons. 63 of the Regulation).

Rather, the data controller must balance the conflicting rights by adopting appropriate measures to mitigate the risks to the rights and freedoms of others, such as deleting excess information that does not refer to the data subject, in compliance with the principle of proportionality (see Guidelines on the right of access, adopted by the EBDP on 28/03/2023, par. 165 et seq.).

In this case, given the request formulated by the applicant and referring to data "relating to previous employment relationships, personal and family life photographs, personal email" (contained as mentioned in the company PC) and further identified in the note attached to the email of 30/09/2022, it is believed that the Company's refusal cannot fall within the restriction referred to in art. 15, par. 4, cited above.

4. Conclusions: declaration of unlawfulness of the processing. Corrective measures pursuant to art. 58, par. 2, of the Regulation.

For the above reasons, the Authority believes that the statements, documentation and reconstructions provided by the data controller during the investigation do not allow the findings notified by the Office with the act of initiation of the procedure to be overcome and that they are therefore unsuitable to allow the archiving of the present proceeding, since none of the cases provided for by art. 11 of the Regulation of the Guarantor no. 1/2019 apply.

The processing carried out by the company, with reference to the failure to respond to the request for access submitted by the complainant, is in fact unlawful, in the terms set out above, in relation to arts. 12, par. 3, and 15 of the Regulation.

Therefore, given the corrective powers attributed by art. 58, par. 2, of the Regulation, the application of an administrative pecuniary sanction is ordered pursuant to art. 83 of the Regulation, commensurate with the circumstances of the specific case (Article 58, paragraph 2, letter i) of the Regulation).

5. Adoption of the injunction order for the application of the administrative pecuniary sanction and accessory sanctions (articles 58, par. 2, letter i), and 83 of the Regulation; art. 166, paragraph 7, of the Code).

The Guarantor, pursuant to art. 58, par. 2, letter i) of the Regulation and art. 166 of the Code, has the power to impose an administrative pecuniary sanction provided for by art. 83, par. 5, of the Regulation, by adopting an injunction order (art. 18. Law 24 November 1981 n. 689).

The violation, ascertained in the terms set out in the reasons, cannot be considered "minor", taking into account the nature, gravity and duration of the violation itself, the degree of responsibility and the manner in which the supervisory authority became aware of the violation (recital 148 of the Regulation).

With reference to the elements listed in art. 83, par. 2, of the Regulation for the purposes of applying the administrative pecuniary sanction and the related quantification, taking into account that the sanction must "in any case [be] effective, proportionate and dissuasive" (art. 83, par. 1 of the Regulation), it is represented that, in the specific case, the following circumstances were considered:

- in relation to the nature, gravity and duration of the violation, the nature of the violation which concerned the exercise of the rights of the data subject and the considerable delay in providing feedback to the complainant's request were considered relevant;

- with reference to the negligent or intentional nature of the violation and the degree of responsibility of the owner, the conduct of the Company was taken into account, which only after several reminders complied with the indications given during the proceedings.

It is also believed that in this case, taking into account the aforementioned principles of effectiveness, proportionality and dissuasiveness to which the Authority must adhere in determining the amount of the sanction (art. 83, par. 1, of the Regulation), the following are relevant: firstly, the economic conditions of the offender, determined on the basis of the revenues achieved by the Company with reference to the ordinary financial statement for the year 2022. Lastly, the amount of sanctions imposed in similar cases is taken into account.

In light of the elements indicated above and the assessments carried out, it is believed, in this case, that the administrative sanction of the payment of a sum equal to Euro 10,000.00 (ten thousand) should be applied to TS Food Processing s.r.l.

In this context, it is also believed, in consideration of the type of violations found that have concerned the exercise of the rights of the interested party, that pursuant to art. 166, paragraph 7, of the Code and art. 16, paragraph 1, of the Regulation of the Guarantor no. 1/2019, it is necessary to proceed with the publication of this provision on the website of the Guarantor.

It is also believed that the conditions set out in art. 17 of Regulation no. 1/2019 exist.

GIVEN ALL THE ABOVE, THE GUARANTOR

determines the unlawfulness of the processing carried out by TS Food Processing s.r.l.., in the person of its legal representative pro tempore, with registered office in Parma, via Benjamin Franklin no. 31, VAT no. 09104390969, pursuant to art. 143 of the Code, for the violation of arts. 12, par. 3, and 15 of the Regulation;

ORDERS

pursuant to art. 58, par. 2, letter i), of the Regulation, to TS Food Processing s.r.l., to pay the sum of Euro 10,000.00 (ten thousand) as an administrative pecuniary sanction for the violations indicated in this provision;

ORDERS

therefore to the same Company to pay the aforementioned sum of Euro 10,000.00 (ten thousand) according to the methods indicated in the attachment, within 30 days of notification of this provision, under penalty of the adoption of the consequent executive actions pursuant to art. 27 of Law no. 689/1981. It is recalled that the right of the offender to settle the dispute by paying - always according to the methods indicated in the attachment - an amount equal to half of the sanction imposed, within the deadline referred to in art. 10, paragraph 3, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 1.9.2011 provided for the filing of the appeal as indicated below (art. 166, paragraph 8, of the Code);

ORDERS

the publication of this provision on the website of the Guarantor pursuant to art. 166, paragraph 7, of the Code and art. 16, paragraph 1, of the Guarantor Regulation no. 1/2019, and believes that the conditions set out in art. 17 of Regulation no. 1/2019 exist.

Pursuant to art. 78 of the Regulation, as well as articles 152 of the Code and 10 of Legislative Decree no. 150/2011, an appeal against this provision may be lodged with the ordinary judicial authority, with an appeal filed with the ordinary court of the place identified in the same art. 10, within thirty days from the date of communication of the provision itself, or sixty days if the appellant resides abroad.

Rome, 20 June 2024

THE PRESIDENT
Stanzione

THE REPORTER
Cerrina Feroni

THE GENERAL SECRETARY
Mattei

[web doc. no. 10043600]

Provision of 20 June 2024

Register of provisions
no. 380 of 20 June 2024

THE GUARANTOR FOR THE PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA

IN today's meeting, attended by Prof. Pasquale Stanzione, president, Prof. Ginevra Cerrina Feroni, vice-president, Dr. Agostino Ghiglia and the lawyer Guido Scorza, members and Councillor Fabio Mattei, general secretary;

HAVING SEEN Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 (hereinafter, the “Regulation”);

HAVING SEEN the Personal Data Protection Code, containing provisions for the adaptation of national legislation to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (Legislative Decree 30 June 2003, no. 196, as amended by Legislative Decree 10 August 2018, no. 101, hereinafter the “Code”);

HAVING SEEN the complaint submitted by Mr. XX on 06/04/2022, pursuant to art. 77 of the Regulation, which complained of a violation of the rules on the protection of personal data by TS Food Processing S.r.l.;

HAVING EXAMINED the documentation in the files;

HAVING SEEN the observations formulated by the Secretary General pursuant to art. 15 of the Regulation of the Guarantor no. 1/2000;

REPORTER Prof. Ginevra Cerrina Feroni;

WHEREAS

1. The complaint against the Company and the start of the investigation.

With the complaint submitted on 06/04/2022 and regularized on 13/06/2022, Mr. XX represented to this Authority that he had submitted a request to exercise the rights, pursuant to art. 15 of the Regulation, against TS Food Processing s.r.l. (hereinafter “the Company”), in order to “access all files and data in any form containing personal data relating to the employment relationship and stored on the personal computer available to him (…)”.

The complainant represented that, in response to this request, he received a refusal from the Company which informed him that it could not allow access because “he could well steal sensitive data of the company previously known to him as an employee”.

Therefore, with the note dated 06/09/2022, the Authority initiated the preliminary investigation, inviting the Company to provide observations regarding the complaint and to comply with the complainant's requests.

With the communication dated 26/09/2022, sent to the complainant and to the Authority, the Company observed that "the request is formulated in an absolutely generic manner and therefore not fulfillable" therefore asking the applicant to indicate in detail the folders and files to which he intended to access. 

An exchange of emails followed between the parties in which, on the one hand, the applicant communicated the list of personal documents still available to the Company (email dated 09/30/2022) and asked to arrange a meeting to access the data (emails dated 01/02/2023 and 01/31/2023) and, on the other hand, the Company requested the communication of the folders to be recovered and expressed its willingness to arrange an appointment in the presence of IT technicians who "validate the operations performed and draw up a report in the interest of all parties involved" (email dated 01/19/2023).

With a final communication sent to the Authority on 02/23/2023, the complainant made it known that no communication had been received from the Company regarding the possibility of accessing his personal data.

2. The initiation of the procedure.

For the above, the Office notified the Company, with a note dated 03/16/2023, of the act of initiation of the proceeding, pursuant to art. 166, paragraph 5, of the Code in relation to the violation of arts. 12, par. 3, and 15 of the Regulation.

On 04/14/2023, the Company sent its defensive documents, pursuant to art. 18 of Law no. 689/1981, with which he argued that:

- the invitation addressed to the applicant to identify exactly the files that are the subject of the request cannot be interpreted as a denial, but is "a consent that aims to protect the right of Mr. ... to access his personal data (...) but also aims to protect the equally legitimate right of the company TS Food to protect itself from the copying and/or dissemination of data that, (...) can be used to divert customers, collect information on company know-how, customer lists, estimates, etc. (...)";

- despite the communications, also sent to the Office of the Guarantor, with which the complainant requested a meeting with the Company, in fact the latter "has never been able to arrange an appointment with the company even by telephone to carry out the operations to which he had been permitted from the beginning".
Finally, with a note dated 12/12/2023, the complainant communicated to this Authority and, for information, to the Company, that he had had access to his PC and consequently to all the personal data (including files, electronic folders) contained therein and to the further personal documentation in the possession of the Company.

3. The outcome of the investigation and the procedure for the adoption of corrective and sanctioning measures.

Following the examination of the declarations made to the Authority during the proceedings and of the documentation acquired, it appears that the Company, as data controller, has carried out some processing operations, relating to the complainant, which are not compliant with the regulations on the protection of personal data.

In this regard, it is highlighted that, unless the fact constitutes a more serious crime, anyone who, in a proceeding before the Guarantor, falsely declares or certifies information or circumstances or produces false deeds or documents is liable pursuant to art. 168 of the Code "False declarations to the Guarantor and interruption of the execution of the tasks or exercise of the powers of the Guarantor".

On the merits, it emerged that the Company did not respond to the request to exercise the rights, presented by the complainant pursuant to art. 15 of the Regulation, and that, only after the submission of the complaint and the opening of the investigation by the Guarantor, access to the personal data and additional information relating to the employment relationship with the party was granted. Compliance therefore occurred almost two years after the deadline set by the Regulation.

With respect to the conduct of the Company, it must be noted that the Company delayed, for a considerable period of time (approximately two years), the response to the request to exercise the rights, motivating this behavior with various justifications. Initially, in fact, access to the personal data contained in the PC was denied due to the fear that company secrets could be stolen, due to the unfair competition behavior held by the applicant during the employment relationship (see e-mail of 04/10/2021); instead, during the proceedings, this refusal was motivated by the generic nature of the request itself and the consequent impossibility of correctly identifying the personal data to be delivered (see e-mail of 09/26/2022); finally, with the defensive documents, the Company highlighted the poor cooperation of the applicant with respect to the requested fulfillment (see note of 04/14/2023).

The arguments put forward by the Company cannot in any case be evaluated positively, for the purposes of a possible justification for the lack of response. In this regard, it is noted that art. 15 of the Regulation, in regulating the right of access of the interested party, provides as the only limit that it does not infringe the rights and freedoms of others (art. 15, par. 4, of the Regulation); a further hypothesis of refusal is provided for by art. 12, par. 5, of the Regulation when the requests of the interested party are "manifestly unfounded or excessive".

It is useful, however, to specify that the restriction to the right of access provided for by art. 15, par. 4, of the Regulation also refers to “industrial and business secrets and intellectual property. However, such considerations should not lead to a refusal to provide the data subject with all the information”, given the amount of information concerning the data subject that is processed by the controller (see Cons. 63 of the Regulation).

Rather, the data controller must balance the conflicting rights, adopting appropriate measures capable of mitigating the risks for the rights and freedoms of others, such as the deletion of excess information that does not refer to the data subject, in compliance with the principle of proportionality (see Guidelines on the right of access, adopted by the EBDP on 28/03/2023, par. 165 et seq.).

In this case, given the request formulated by the applicant and referring to data "relating to previous employment relationships, personal and family life photographs, personal email" (contained as mentioned in the company PC) and further identified in the note attached to the email of 09/30/2022, it is believed that the Company's refusal cannot fall within the restriction referred to in art. 15, par. 4, cited above.

4. Conclusions: declaration of unlawfulness of the processing. Corrective measures pursuant to art. 58, par. 2, of the Regulation.

For the above reasons, the Authority believes that the declarations, documentation and reconstructions provided by the data controller during the investigation do not allow the findings notified by the Office with the act initiating the procedure to be overcome and are therefore unsuitable to allow the archiving of this proceeding, since none of the cases provided for by art. 11 of the Regulation of the Guarantor no. 1/2019.

The processing carried out by the company, with reference to the failure to respond to the request for access submitted by the complainant, is in fact unlawful, in the terms set out above, in relation to articles 12, paragraph 3, and 15 of the Regulation.

Therefore, given the corrective powers attributed by art. 58, paragraph 2, of the Regulation, the application of an administrative pecuniary sanction is ordered pursuant to art. 83 of the Regulation, commensurate with the circumstances of the specific case (art. 58, paragraph 2, letter i) of the Regulation).

5. Adoption of the injunction order for the application of the administrative pecuniary sanction and accessory sanctions (art. 58, paragraph 2, letter i), and 83 of the Regulation; art. 166, paragraph 7, of the Code).

The Guarantor, pursuant to art. 58, par. 2, letter i) of the Regulation and art. 166 of the Code, has the power to impose a pecuniary administrative sanction provided for by art. 83, par. 5, of the Regulation, by adopting an injunction order (art. 18. Law 24 November 1981 n. 689).

The violation, ascertained in the terms set out in the reasons, cannot be considered "minor", taking into account the nature, gravity and duration of the violation itself, the degree of responsibility and the manner in which the supervisory authority became aware of the violation (recital 148 of the Regulation).

With reference to the elements listed in art. 83, par. 2, of the Regulation for the purposes of applying the administrative pecuniary sanction and the related quantification, taking into account that the sanction must "in any case [be] effective, proportionate and dissuasive" (art. 83, par. 1 of the Regulation), it is represented that, in the case in question, the following circumstances were considered:

- in relation to the nature, gravity and duration of the violation, the nature of the violation which concerned the exercise of the rights of the interested party and the considerable delay in providing feedback to the complainant's request were considered relevant;

- with reference to the negligent or intentional nature of the violation and the degree of responsibility of the owner, the conduct of the Company was taken into account, which only after several reminders complied with the indications given during the proceedings.

It is also believed that, in this case, taking into account the aforementioned principles of effectiveness, proportionality and dissuasiveness to which the Authority must adhere in determining the amount of the sanction (Article 83, paragraph 1, of the Regulation), the following are relevant: firstly, the economic conditions of the offender, determined on the basis of the revenues achieved by the Company with reference to the ordinary financial statements for the year 2022. Lastly, the amount of sanctions imposed in similar cases is taken into account.

In light of the elements indicated above and the assessments carried out, it is believed, in this case, to apply to TS Food Processing s.r.l., the administrative sanction of the payment of a sum equal to Euro 10,000.00 (ten thousand).

In this context, it is also believed, in consideration of the type of violations ascertained that concerned the exercise of the rights of the interested party, that pursuant to Article 166, paragraph 7, of the Code and Article 16, paragraph 1, of the Regulation of the Guarantor n. 1/2019, this provision should be published on the website of the Guarantor.

It is also believed that the conditions set out in art. 17 of Regulation n. 1/2019 exist.

GIVEN ALL THE ABOVE, THE GUARANTOR

determines the unlawfulness of the processing carried out by TS Food Processing s.r.l.., in the person of its legal representative pro tempore, with registered office in Parma, via Benjamin Franklin n. 31, P.I. 09104390969, pursuant to art. 143 of the Code, for the violation of arts. 12, par. 3, and 15 of the Regulation;

ORDERS

pursuant to art. 58, par. 2, lett. i), of the Regulation, to TS Food Processing s.r.l., to pay the sum of Euro 10,000.00 (ten thousand) as an administrative pecuniary sanction for the violations indicated in this provision;

ORDERS

therefore the same Company to pay the aforementioned sum of Euro 10,000.00 (ten thousand) according to the methods indicated in the attachment, within 30 days of notification of this provision, under penalty of the adoption of the consequent executive actions pursuant to art. 27 of Law no. 689/1981. It is recalled that the right of the offender to settle the dispute by paying - always according to the methods indicated in the attachment - an amount equal to half of the sanction imposed, within the deadline referred to in art. 10, paragraph 3, of Legislative Decree no. 150 of 1.9.2011 provided for the filing of the appeal as indicated below (art. 166, paragraph 8, of the Code);

ORDERS

the publication of this provision on the website of the Guarantor pursuant to art. 166, paragraph 7, of the Code and art. 16, paragraph 1, of the Guarantor Regulation no. 1/2019, and believes that the conditions set out in art. 17 of Regulation no. 1/2019 exist.

Pursuant to art. 78 of the Regulation, as well as articles 152 of the Code and 10 of Legislative Decree no. 150/2011, opposition to this provision may be lodged with the ordinary judicial authority, with an appeal filed with the ordinary court of the place identified in the same art. 10, within thirty days from the date of communication of the provision itself, or sixty days if the appellant resides abroad.

Rome, 20 June 2024

THE PRESIDENT
Stanzione

THE REPORTER
Cerrina Feroni

THE SECRETARY GENERAL
Mattei