Konsumentombudsmannen v De Agostini (1997) C-34/95 is an EU law case, concerning the free movement of goods in the European Union.
If the national court found an unequal burden in law or fact, it would be caught, and would then have to be justified under art 36 or a mandatory requirement.
37 in response to that objection, it is sufficient to observe that Council Directive 84/450/EEC of 10 September 1984 relating to the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning misleading advertising (OJ 1984 L 250, p. 17), which provides in particular in Article 4(1) that Member States are to ensure that adequate and effective means exist for the control of misleading advertising in the interests of consumers as well as competitors and the general public, could be robbed of its substance in the field of television advertising if the receiving Member State were deprived of all possibility of adopting measures against an advertiser and that this would be in contradiction with the express intention of the Community legislature (see, to this effect, the judgment of the Court of the European Free Trade Association of 16 June 1995 in Joined Cases E-8/94 and E-9/94 Forbrukerombudet v Mattel Scandinavia and Lego Norge, Report of the EFTA Court, 1 January 1994 – 30 June 1995, 113, paragraphs 54 to 56 and paragraph 58).
40 in Joined Cases C-267/91 and C-268/91 Keck and Mithouard [1993] ECR I-6097, at paragraph 16, the Court held that national measures restricting or prohibiting certain selling arrangements are not covered by Article 30 of the Treaty, so long as they apply to all traders operating within the national territory and so long as they affect in the same manner, in law and in fact, the marketing of domestic products and of those from other Member States.
47 Consequently, the answer to the question must be that, on a proper construction of Article 30 of the Treaty, a Member State is not precluded from taking, on the basis of provisions of its domestic legislation, measures against an advertiser in relation to television advertising, provided that those provisions affect in the same way, in law and in fact, the marketing of domestic products and of those from other Member States, are necessary for meeting overriding requirements of general public importance or one of the aims laid down in Article 36 of the Treaty, are proportionate for that purpose, and those aims or overriding requirements could not be met by measures less restrictive of intra-Community trade.