10.10.2022

Official Journal of the European Union

C 389/6

(Case C-466/22)

(2022/C 389/07)

Language of the case: Bulgarian

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant in the main proceedings: V.B. Trade OOD

Defendant in the main proceedings: Direktor na Direktsia ‘Obzhalvane i danachno-osiguritelna praktika’ — Veliko Tarnovo

Questions referred

1.Must the phrase ‘legal effect [of an electronic signature] as evidence’ in Article 25(1) of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (1) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC be interpreted as meaning that that provision requires the courts of the Member States to presume that, where the requirements of [points] 10, 11 and 12 of Article 3 of that regulation are met or are not in dispute, the existence and claimed authorship of such a signature must be presumed a priori to be established beyond doubt or dispute, and must that phrase be interpreted as meaning that, where the requirements of those provisions are met, the courts of the Member States are required to recognise that the qualified electronic signature has the evidential value/force equivalent to that of a handwritten signature only to the extent that the relevant national legal regime prescribes in respect of such a handwritten signature?

2.Must the phrase ‘shall not be denied … in legal proceedings’ in Article 25(1) of that regulation be interpreted as imposing on the national courts of the Member States an absolute prohibition on using the procedural possibilities provided for in their legal systems to deny evidential value to the legal effect of the electronic signature provided for in that regulation, or must it be interpreted as meaning that that provision does not preclude the possibility to refute the requirements of [points] 10, 11 and 12 of Article 3 of that regulation as being met, through the use, by the national courts of the Member States, of the instruments applicable under their procedural laws, thereby enabling the parties to a dispute before the courts to refute an electronic signature’s evidential force and value, as provided for?

(1) OJ 2014 L 257, p. 73.