The ruling was made in a suit brought by the Deutscher Apothekerverband, the German federation representing over 19,000 pharmacists, against Dutch on-line pharmacy 0800 DocMorris NV and Jacques Waterval, a pharmacist and legal representative of the company.
It stated: "A national prohibition on the sale of medicinal products by mail-order is contrary to Community law where it applies to non-prescription medicines which have been authorised for sale on the German market." However, it went on to say that such a ban is compatible with EU law if it applies to drugs which have not been authorised in a member state.
The DA had claimed that German laws on medicinal products and their advertising prohibit the sale of drugs over the Internet and their delivery by international mail order, and that this ban does not infringe the EU Treaty on the free movement of goods. Believing that the case had implications for the Treaty, the Frankfurt court had referred it to the ECoJ.
The latter judged that a national prohibition on their mail-order sale would be a restriction on free movement of goods and that such a ban is not justified for non-prescription drugs since appropriate levels of advice and information may be provided with the product.
However, for prescription drugs the ban is justified. Allowing these to be supplied on receipt of a prescription and with no other control could increase the risk of them being abused or incorrectly used, it said, while the fact that labelling may be in a different language they can have more harmful consequences in the case of prescription drugs.