Case C-171/11 Fra.bo Spa v Deutsche Vereinigung des Gas- und Wasserfaches

The issue of the horizontal direct effect of the free movement provisions has the tendency to cause anxiety among lawyers who fear for the fate of private autonomy. The issue also evidently troubles the Court of Justice itself: every time it brings some clarity to one question, it seems to feel the need to introduce ambiguity in another. Its judgment of 12 July 2012 in Fra.bo is no exception: it, finally, settles the question whether, in certain circumstances, private parties can be caught by the free movement of goods as well as the free movement of persons and services. In defining those circumstances, however, the Court is particularly, and willfully, and disastrously, ambiguous.