What Keck and Mithouard should have said: Preventing substantial barriers to market access

This rewriting of Keck and Mithouard (joined cases C-267/91 and C-268/91 ECLI:EU:C:1993:905) is based on three categories of measures having equivalent effect: 1) national measures which disadvantage imported goods, 2) product requirements and 3) indistinctly applicable measures capable of substantially impeding the access of goods to a Member State market. Thus, instead of the category of national measures relating to certain selling arrangements, Nachtnebel, Langrée and Rodger's judgment emphasises that national measures which do not discriminate directly or indirectly, and which do not qualify as "product requirements" in the sense of Cassis de Dijon (case 120/78 Rewe-Zentral v Bundesmonopolverwaltung für Branntwein ECLI:EU:C:1979:42), must substantially impede market access in order to qualify as measures having equivalent effect. The resulting judgment roughly follows the approach of AG Jacobs in Leclerc-Siplec (case C-412/93 Leclerc-Siplec v TF1 and M6 ECLI:EU:C:1994:393).