ECJ (case C-28/08 P, European Commission v. The Bavarian Lager Co. Ltd, not yet reported: privacy of EU government data)

The Bavarian Lager Company challenged the Commission's refusal to grant it full access tot the minutes of a meeting in Brussels with national and European civil servants as well as representatives of the European Beer Brewing Federation, including the names of all those who attended. The Court of Justice overturned on appeal the earlier decision of the General Court upholding the right to access to the document in question by Bavarian Lager on the grounds that the right to privacy prevailed in the circumstances over the right of access to the document in question. Bavarian Lager at the end of a fourteen-year administrative and legal battle to obtain the names of those who attended a meeting in Brussels in October 1996 had costs awarded against it at both judicial levels.