EU court: no 'right to be forgotten' in companies register

BRUSSELS – The European Union's top court says that people have no "right to be forgotten" in the registers of companies.

An Italian businessman, Salvatore Manni, sued the Lecce Chamber of Commerce on the grounds that properties in a tourist complex developed by a company of which he was a director weren't sold because the register showed he had previously been the administrator of a firm that went bankrupt.

A local court ordered data linking Manni to the first company's liquidation anonymized and said the chamber must pay compensation. The chamber appealed to Italy's Court of Cassation, which consulted the European Court of Justice.

The European court said Thursday that in some specific cases limiting access to personal data may eventually and "exceptionally" be justified, but that didn't apply to Manni's complaint.