EU court rejects Meta challenge against EU antitrust requests for information

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Meta Platforms Inc on Wednesday suffered a setback after Europe’s second-top court ruled EU antitrust regulators’ requests for information were legitimate.

The European Commission had sought information related to its investigation into Facebook (NASDAQ:)’s data and online marketplace, prompting the company to compare the competition enforcer to a fishing super trawler vacuuming up data.

“The General Court finds that Meta Platforms Ireland has not successfully demonstrated that the request to provide documents to be identified by search terms went beyond what was necessary or that establishing a virtual data room failed to ensure that sensitive personal data was sufficiently protected,” the Luxembourg-based General Court said.

Meta said it handed over more than a million documents since 2019 even as it questioned the necessity and proportionality of the data requests. An increasing number of companies have criticised such requests.

Meta can appeal on points of law to the EU Court of Justice, Europe’s highest.

The cases are T-451/20 Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission & T-452/20 Meta Platforms Ireland v Commission.