## Facts

- Alpine Investments BV, established in the Netherlands, provided investment services related to commodities futures, including transmitting client orders to brokers.
- Alpine marketed its services through unsolicited telephone calls (“cold calling”) to potential customers, including individuals in other EU Member States.
- Dutch securities law required licensing for intermediaries and allowed the Minister of Finance to impose restrictions to prevent undesirable developments in securities trading.
- After numerous complaints about cold-calling practices, the Dutch Minister prohibited Alpine from cold calling, including for cross-border solicitations.
- The Minister justified the prohibition on consumer-protection grounds and to preserve the reputation of the Dutch financial sector.
- Alpine challenged the measure before a Dutch administrative court, arguing the ban unjustifiably restricted the EU freedom to provide services, and the national court referred questions for a preliminary ruling.

## Issues

1. Whether the EU freedom to provide services applies to unsolicited telephone offers made from one Member State to potential recipients in another, absent any prior relationship.
2. Whether a non-discriminatory, generally applicable prohibition imposed by the provider’s Member State of establishment can constitute a restriction on cross-border services.
3. Whether a blanket ban on cold calling can be justified by consumer protection and preserving the financial sector’s reputation, and whether it is proportionate.

## Decision

- The Court held that the freedom to provide services applies to telephone offers to potential recipients in other Member States even without a pre-existing relationship.
- The Court held that a home-state prohibition on cross-border cold calling constitutes a restriction because it removes a rapid and direct marketing method for reaching clients in other Member States.
- The Court held that consumer protection and safeguarding the reputation of the national financial sector are imperative public-interest reasons capable of justifying the restriction.
- The Court concluded the general ban was suitable and necessary in light of complaints and enforcement difficulties, and therefore proportionate.
- EU law did not preclude the Netherlands from prohibiting Alpine’s cold calling.

## Legal Principles

- The freedom to provide services covers cross-border offers made at a distance, including unsolicited telephone solicitation, without requiring a prior provider-recipient relationship.
- A restriction may arise from measures imposed by either the destination State or the origin State, including non-discriminatory, generally applicable rules, where they hinder access to other Member States’ service markets.
- In financial services, consumer protection and preserving confidence in the integrity and reputation of national financial markets can justify restrictions on service provision.
- A restrictive measure must be applied generally and without discrimination and must be appropriate and necessary; where ex post control is ineffective, a general prohibition may be proportionate.

## Conclusion

The Court treated a home-state ban on cross-border cold calling as a restriction on the freedom to provide services, but upheld it because the measure was non-discriminatory and proportionate to legitimate public-interest aims of consumer protection and protecting the reputation of the national financial sector.


Alpine Invs. BV v. Minister van Fin., Case C-384/93, 1995 E.C.R. I-1141 (C.J.E.U. 1995)