In a judgment handed down on Thursday, 13 November (Case C-563/24), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that a non-alcoholic beverage could not be sold as ‘gin’.
In Germany, a German association [that aims] to combat unfair competition called for the sale of a non-alcoholic beverage under the name ‘Virgin Gin Alkoholfrei’ (‘non-alcoholic Virgin Gin’) to be prohibited. It believes that this name contravenes the regulation (2019/787) governing the labelling of alcoholic beverages, according to which gin is produced by flavouring ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin with juniper berries and has a minimum alcoholic strength by volume of 37.5%.
According to the court, EU law clearly prohibits presenting and labelling a beverage such as the one in dispute as ‘non-alcoholic gin’ due to the very fact that the beverage does not contain alcohol.
The European court finds that the freedom to conduct a business—a freedom enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights—does not preclude this prohibition and thus does not render it invalid. The prohibition notably does not prevent the product in question from being sold but rather prevents it from being sold under the legal name reserved for a specific spirit drink—in this case, gin.
The court considers this prohibition to be proportionate insofar as it is aimed at protecting consumers from any risk of confusion as to the products’ composition as well as gin producers that satisfy the requirements set out in EU law against unfair competition.
See the judgment of the Court of Justice: https://aeur.eu/f/jf5 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)