Agefi Luxembourg - septembre 2026

Septembre 2026 47 AGEFI Luxembourg IA & Tech L es investissements massifs dans les infra­ structures liées à l’in­ telligence artificielle commencent à produire des résultats économiques plus visibles. SelonNatixis In­ vestmentManagers, le débat autour de l’IAévolue désor­ mais : la questionn’est plus seulement de savoir si cette technologie peut êtremoné­ tisée, mais dans quelleme­ sure les revenus générés permettront de rentabiliser les capitaux engagés. Pour Jack Janasiewicz, gérant de portefeuille et responsable de la stratégie d’investissement chez Natixis Investment Managers Solutions, la demande pour les technologies d’intelligence artifi­ ciellerestesolide.Lacroissancedes revenus serait même désormais davantagelimitéeparlescapacités de calcul disponibles que par le manque d’intérêt des clients. Les principaux acteurs du secteur bénéficient de cette dynamique. Nvidia continue notamment de profiter d’une demande soutenue pour ses composants destinés à l’intelligence artificielle. Les entre­ prises développant les modèles d’IA les plus avancés enregistrent également une forte progression de leurs revenus. Dans les entreprises clientes, l’uti­ lisationdecestechnologiess’étend progressivement. Les outils de programmationassistéeparIA,les services d’inférence et différentes applications professionnelles pas­ sentainsidelaphased’expérimen­ tation à des usages commerciaux réguliers.Cetteévolutionconstitue un signal important pour Natixis InvestmentManagers,carunepar­ tie des investissements réalisés dans les centres de données, les serveurs et les capacités de calcul commence désormais à produire des revenusmesurables. L’un des principaux indicateurs réside dans le déséquilibre entre l’offre et lademande de capacités de calcul. Les taux d’utilisation restent élevés et les entreprises spécialisées dans l’IA cherchent à sécuriser de nouvelles capacités afin de poursuivre leur dévelop­ pement. Pour les investisseurs, cette situa­ tion tend à confirmer que les dépenses engagées ne reposent pasuniquement sur des anticipa­ tions spéculatives. La demande existe et les infrastructures dispo­ nibles deviennent ellesmêmes un facteur limitant. La croissance des revenus ne suf­ fit toutefois pas encore à valider pleinement le modèle écono­ miquede l’intelligenceartificielle. Les dépenses d’investissement restent très élevées et les coûts nécessairespour faire fonctionner les modèles demeurent impor­ tants. Lesfluxde trésoreriedispo­ nibles restent donc sous pression pourplusieurs acteursdusecteur. Des signes d’amélioration appa­ raissent néanmoins. Les gains d’efficacité progressent, les reve­ nus augmentent et les premiers effetsde levier opérationnel com­ mencent à semanifester. Ces évo­ lutions restent encore limitées, mais elles contribuent à modifier progressivement le débat autour des investissements dans l’IA. Les résultats des grandes entre­ prises technologiques montrent également que les investisseurs attendent désormais un retour plus concret sur les sommes consacréesàcettetechnologie.Les nouvelles dépenses doivent pro­ gressivement démontrer leur capacité à générer des revenus et des rendements, plutôt que de simplement financer une crois­ sance future. Dans ce contexte, les infrastruc­ tures cloud, les capacités d’infé­ renceetlesréseauxdedistribution offrent une visibilité relativement importante. Les entreprises déve­ loppant les modèles d’IA les plus avancésprésententunpotentielde rendement supérieur, mais égale­ ment des risques plus élevés. Pour les investisseurs, l’enjeu sera donc de distinguer les acteurs capables de transformer durable­ ment les dépenses d’IA en reve­ nus et en flux de trésorerie de ceux dont la croissance dépend encore principalement de nou­ veaux capitaux. L'IAcommence à générer des revenus ByVincentWELLENS,AvocatàlaCour,NautaDutilh Avocats Luxembourg S.à r.l T heCourt of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) delivered its judg­ ment (CaseC798/24) on 3 Septem­ ber 2026 against a sensitive backdrop, closing the door on the systematic publication of personal data rela­ ting to shareholders of Latvian public limited companies. Latvia is indeed only just emerging froma series of cyberattacks that exposed the personal data of large parts of its population and compromi­ sed several public databases. A ti­ mely reminder that data protection is never a purely theoreticalmatter. UBOregisters opened the door, shareholder registers are next Company registers are a reference tool for anyone, particularlyinvestors,banks,lendersandcompliance teams,seekingtoidentifywhostandsbehindanentity. But this transparency comes at a price, one that the CJEU keeps recalibrating, decision after decision, against the yardstick of proportionality. In 2022, the Luxembourg Business Registers judgment endedunrestrictedpublic access tobeneficial owner­ ship (UBO) registers, ruling it incompatible with the EUCharterofFundamentalRights.Thedecisionhad analmostimmediateeffect,triggeringthesuspension ofsuchfullaccessnotonlyinLuxembourgbutinsev­ eralMember Stateswithindays ( see our article inAgefi December 2022, p. 45 ). The judgment of 3 September 2026extendsthisreasoningtoneighbouringterritory: theshareholderregistersofpubliclimitedcompanies. Seventeenminority shareholders inLatvia had chal­ lengedaregimerequiringonlinepublication,inopen accessandavailableforbulkdownload,oftheiriden­ tity, contact details, shareholdings and voting rights, arguingthatthenationallegislaturehadneverexam­ ined or justified the need for such disclosure, expos­ ing themto a high risk ofmisuse. The Latvian Constitutional Court had referred two questionstotheCJEU:doesArticle14(d)ofCompany LawDirective 2017/1132, which covers persons “par­ ticipating in the administration, supervision or control” of the company, require the disclosure of every share­ holder’sdata, and, if so, is that provisionvalid in light ofArticles 7 and 8 of theCharter? The CJEU answered in the negative. Article 14 does notrequirethepublicationofinformationonallshare­ holders, including minority ones. Its reasoning rests onadistinctionofstatus.Shareholdersareneitherap­ pointednor removed fromoffice; their status derives solelyfromtheirholdingofsharecapital,unlikemem­ bers of the management and administrative bodiescoveredbytheprovision.Publishingthe dataofeveryshareholderservesnopurposein relationtothedirective’sobjectiveofprotecting third parties and legal certainty, since share­ holders have no authority to represent or bind the company. Thisanswerrendersthequestionof validity under the Charter moot: the CJEUprefers to settle the mat­ ter through interpretation rather thanopenthemoreperilousdebate on the validity of a European text. EU company law therefore did not require such disclosure. What re­ mained to be seen was whether the GDPR permitted it. On that ground, theCJEUand theAdvocateGeneral do not fully converge. Two readings of proportionality Thisdifferenceindegreebetweenthetwoanalysesil­ lustrates the ongoing difficulty in setting a uniform line on the scope of the proportionality principle under theGDPR. This cautionsits in tensionwith the Digital Omnibus, the European Commission’s pro­ posal of 19November 2025 to cut GDPRcompliance costs while claiming to preserve fundamental rights protection, a balance yet to be tested just as the CJEU keeps tightening proportionality scrutiny of public transparency rationales. TheCJEUlargelyfollowstheAdvocateGeneral’sanal­ ysis of the seriousness of the interference. The data at issuemakeitpossibletobuildapersonalandfinancial profile, and are accessible to an unlimited number of people.TheCourtrecallsthat “thepotentialconsequences for the data subjects resulting from possible abuse of their data are exacerbated by the fact that, once those data have beenmadeavailabletothepublic,theycannotonlybefreely consulted, but also retained and disseminated and that, in the event of such successive processing, it becomes increas­ inglydifficult, or even illusory, for those data subjects to de­ fend themselves effectively against abuse” . Advocate General Norkus, however, went further in hisopinion:heproposedanoutrightnegativeanswer forallthreepurposesinvokedbyLatvia(atransparent business environment, antimoney laundering, and sanctions), noting that Latvian law does not even clearly identify its purpose for processing sharehold­ ers’data–aflawalsoraisedbyLatvia’sdataprotection authority.Headdedthatthereasoningin Luxembourg Business Registers applies a fortiori , since Latvian law targets all shareholders without the 25% threshold defining a beneficial owner. The CJEU, for its part, endorses the analytical frame­ work and the seriousness of the interference, but leaves it to the referring court to verify compliance with purpose limitation and proportionality in con­ crete terms, without ruling as definitively as theAd­ vocate General. This nuance is not neutral: it leaves nationalcourtsamarginofappreciation,whereasthe AdvocateGeneralproposedamoreuniformandpre­ dictable EUlevel solution. In short: two judges, two degrees of firmness. Limiteddirect impact on Luxembourg companies For Luxembourg, the direct impact is limited, share­ holder registers of Luxembourg public limited com­ panies( sociétésanonymes )arenotpubliclyaccessibleas inLatvia. But the judgmentmatterswell beyond that comparison and it may concern other corporate forms, the private limited liability company ( Société à responsabilité limitée –S.à r.l.) inpartcular. Its reasoning is squarely relevant to investment funds, SOPARFIs, securitisation vehicles, familyinvestment structures andprivate equity vehicles, forwhich investor confi­ dentiality is often a structuring consideration. It supports the proposition that publishing share­ holder data, at least those of shareholders who are physicalpersons,isaseriousinterferencewithprivacy rights requiring robust justification, reinforcingargu­ ments against any future measure widening public access to such registers. If broader access to physical personshareholder in­ formation were ever considered in Luxembourg, it could follow a tiered access model similar to the one appliedtoUBOinformation,grantingaccessbasedon a demonstrated legitimate interest. This is not a legal vacuum:theAMLDirective2015/849,asamended,al­ ready establishes such a model, with unconditional access for competent authorities and obliged entities, andconditionalaccessforotherssubjecttoalegitimate interest. TheAdvocate General’s suggestion of a rea­ sonedrequest procedure with a tenday deadline il­ lustrates how a similar approach could work in practice,thoughitisspecifictotheLatvianregimeand not directly transposable toLuxembourg. Furthermore, another question is also the categories of personal data that can be disclosed in the light of thedataminimisation,wherebyitisusefultomention thattheLuxembourgBusinessRegisterhas,inrelated to UBO data, recently decided to narrow down the categories of personal data that are accessible on the basis of legitimate interest. Practical considerations A related question is the fate of shareholder data al­ ready collected and disseminated before the judg­ ment, including by data brokers. Going forward, collectingsuchdataonthestrengthofarulenowheld incompatiblewiththeGDPRcannolongerbelawful. As for thepast, theanswer is inprinciplenodifferent. Under settledCJEUcase law, an interpretation given in a preliminary ruling clarifies the meaning EU law alreadyhad fromits entry into force, with retroactive ( ex tunc ) effect, and a national court cannot limit the temporal effects of a resulting declaration of incom­ patibilitywiththeEUCharterofFundamentalRights. On this basis, the Latvian rule should be treated as having been incompatible with the GDPR through­ out,whichstrengthensthecaseforerasureorobjection rights over data already collected and disseminated on that basis. Direct impact on the EU Inc. proposal This proportionality test is not confined to case law. On 18March 2026, the European Commission pro­ posed a Regulation on the 28 th Regime Corporate Legal Framework, or “EU Inc.”, a new harmonised company form for every Member State. Its public register discloses only directors and persons autho­ rised to represent the company, plus the founding shareholder(s) or a sole member, mirroring the sta­ tusbaseddistinctiontheCJEUdrawshere.Ordinary shareholders instead appear only in a separate digi­ talshareregister,accessibletoshareholdersandother interested parties on a legitimateinterest basis, not thepublic at large: the tieredmodel alreadyused for beneficial ownership. In Opinion 10/2026, the EDPS welcomed this non­ public approach, while recommending an exhaus­ tive data list, a clear definition of interested parties, and a defined storagelimitation period, echoing its earlier Opinion 4/2023 on multiplevote sharehold­ ers. These recommendations track the CJEU’s pro­ portionality logic, confirming that the EU legislator negotiating the EU Inc. proposal will have to take this case law into account. Conclusion The judgmentof3September2026doesnotoverturn the path set in 2022 but confirms and refines it. Cor­ poratetransparencycannotbepursuedattheexpense offundamentalrightswithoutaclearandproportion­ atejustification.JustastheCJEUcurtailedunrestricted access toUBOregisters in LuxembourgBusiness Regis­ ters , it nowrefuses to endorse the systematic publica­ tion of shareholder datawhere such disclosure bears littleconnectiontotheobjectivepursued.Thebroader the audience and the more sensitive the data, the stronger the justification required. In an era marked by cyberattacks, data aggregation and the growing commercialvalueofpersonalinformation,theCourt’s mess ageisclear:transparencyisnotanendinitself.It remainstobeseenhowMemberStateswillreflectthis requirement in their own registers, and whether EU legislation will one day harmonise access to share­ holder data, as alreadydone for beneficial owners. For Luxembourg, the judgment does not require im­ mediate legislative change, but it further consolidates atrendthatpolicymakersandmarketparticipantscan no longer ignore. Whether in relation to shareholder registers, beneficial ownership information or future initiatives such as the EU Inc. framework, access to personal data is increasingly likely to be assessed through a tiered and purposedriven model rather than throughunrestrictedpublicdisclosure. The case therefore representsmore thanaLatviandispute: it is another step in theCJEU’s gradual redefinitionof the balance between transparency and privacy, one that will continue to shape the design of corporate disclo­ sure regimes across the EuropeanUnion. Register transparency versus shareholder privacy: The CJEU tightens the screws Abonnement aumensuel (journal+éditiondigitale) 1an(11numéros)=55€abonnementpourLuxembourgetBelgique-65€pourautrespays L’édition digitale du mensuel en ligne sur notre site Internet www.agefi.lu est accessible automatiquementauxsouscripteursdel’éditionpapier. NOM:....................................................................................................................................................................... ADRESSE:.............................................................................................................................................................. 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