Spain: Comments on the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 29 September 2022

Published

Oct 07 2022

Written By

Virginia Hierro Domínguez

Senior Associate
Spain

I am an associate in Bird & Bird's Insurance and Reinsurance practice in the Madrid office.

Virginia Martínez Fernández

Partner
Spain

I am a partner in Bird & Bird's Insurance and Reinsurance department in the Madrid office.

Comments on the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 29 September 2022 (case C-633/20): will the DGSFP's historical criterion on the impossibility of acting simultaneously as policyholder and intermediary in the same policy be modified?

On 4 October the First Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU") published its Judgment of 29 September 2022, whereby it concludes that “a legal person whose activity consists in offering its customers membership on a voluntary basis, in return for payment which it receives from them, of a group insurance policy to which it has subscribed previously with an insurance company” should be deemed an insurance intermediary. With this interpretation, the CJEU has ruled against the criterion that the Spanish Insurance Authority (the “Dirección General de Seguros y Fondos de Pensiones”, hereinafter “DGSFP”) has historically maintained in several of its public consultations, according to which the dual role of policyholder and intermediary would distort the activity of advice, which is why it de facto prohibited the concurrence in the same person or entity of the figures of policyholder and insurance intermediary.

Read our analysis of the Judgment and its possible implications in Spain here