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EU Judgment in Cases T-451/20 and T-452/20: Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission
24 May 2023
Wednesday 24th May 2023
General Court
Judgment in Cases T-451/20 Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission & T-452/20 Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission
(Competition)
Suspecting anti-competitive behaviour by the Facebook group in its use of data and in the management of its social networking platform, the European Commission sent a request for information to Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd, formerly Facebook Ireland Ltd, by decision of 4 May 2020.
This decision, adopted under Article 18(3) of Regulation 1/2003, obliged Meta Platforms Ireland to provide the Commission with all documents prepared or received by three of its managers during the relevant period which contained one or more of the search terms defined in the annexes. Failure to provide the requested information was subject to a potential daily penalty payment of € 8 million.
The decision of 4 May 2020 replaced an earlier similar decision, which provided for broader search criteria. Following discussions between the Commission and Meta Platforms Ireland, the new decision sought to reduce the number of documents requested by refining the search terms and limiting the number of officials involved.
On 15 July 2020, Meta Platforms Ireland brought an action for annulment of the decision of 4 May 2020 and an application for interim measures.
By an interim order of 29 October 2020, the President of the General Court ordered a stay of execution of the decision of 4 May 2020 until a specific procedure for the production of the requested documents, which are not related to the commercial activities of Meta Platforms Ireland and which, moreover, contain sensitive personal data, is put in place.
Following this order, the Commission adopted an amending decision stipulating that these documents will only be placed on the investigation file after they have been examined in a virtual data room in the manner specified in the interim order. Meta Platforms Ireland adapted its application for annulment to take account of this amending decision.
Details
- Date:
- 24 May 2023
- Event Categories:
- EU General Court, EVENT, IEU AGENDA
- Event Tags:
- T-451/20 Meta Platforms Ireland, T-452/20 Meta Platforms Ireland
Venue
- EU General Court
-
Palais de la Cour de Justice, Boulevard Konrad Adenauer, Kirchberg
Luxembourg, 2925 Luxembourg + Google Map - Phone
- (00352) 43 03-1
- View Venue Website
Organizer
- EU General Court
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