INDUSTRIES, E-COMMERCE | CJEU rules on minimum delivery charges for books

On 18 December 2025, the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) issued its judgment in case C-366/24 (Amazon EU v. France), concerning French legislation imposing a minimum charge of Euro 3 for home delivery of new books on orders below Euro 35. Amazon EU challenged the measure, arguing an infringement of Directive 2000/31/EC (the E-commerce Directive), Directive 2006/123/EC (the Services Directive), and the principle of free movement of goods, whereas the French government contended that the legislation pursues the objective of safeguarding editorial and cultural diversity and therefore falls outside the scope of those directives. The CJEU held that national measures aimed at protecting cultural diversity are indeed excluded from review under the E-Commerce Directive and the Services Directive. Nevertheless, such measures remain subject to primary EU law, in particular the rules on the free movement of goods. In this regard, the CJEU recalled that Article 34 TFEU prohibits any national measure capable of hindering intra-EU trade, directly or indirectly, actually or potentially. The CJEU thus concluded that legislation setting delivery charges for books not collected from physical bookshops must be assessed solely in the light of the free movement of goods and cannot be regarded as relating to a “selling arrangement” within the meaning of the judgment issued in joined cases C-267/91 and C-268/91 (Keck and Mithouard).

Newsletter n. 114 – January 2026